Main description:

Rift Valley fever (RVF) virus, a mosquito-borne zoonotic agent, causes haemorrhagic fever in humans, and abortion and neonatal death in livestock. Outbreaks have caused national meat markets to collapse and have in the past caused regional trade embargoes.The geography of infection and clinical disease is expanding. Climate change is expected to accelerate this spread. The known geographic range of the virus is already larger than the areas where clinical disease has been observed. Effective surveillance is essential to mitigate the impact of RVF on lives, livelihoods and national economies.The RVF Surveillance Manual provides risk-based guidance for designing, planning and implementing effective participatory and syndromic surveillance. It builds on approaches outlined in the OIE Guide to Terrestrial Animal Health Surveillance and the RVF Decision Support Framework. It shows you how to tailor this guidance to the epidemiological needs of individual countries, starting with setting appropriate objectives. RVF surveillance objectives need to be in line with the country's risk category and economic goals. Selecting the most appropriate indicators and methods for the situation follows easily from these goals and objectives. The manual is not prescriptive. Instead, it suggests questions to help you build a timely and sensitive surveillance system suited to national objectives and resources