Epi on the Island 2010 is now underway at the Atlantic Veterinary College. Hosted by the Centre for Veterinary Epidemiological Research, Epi on the Island draws participants from all over the world to this annual event.

Module 1,  “Introduction to Animal Health Risk Modelling”, is being presented by Dr. Francisco J. Zagmutt, Senior Risk Analysis Consultant, VOSE Consulting, and Dr. Javier Sanchez, CFIA Research Chair- Risk Analysis, AVC.

The course runs from August 10 – 13, 2010, providing participants with an introduction to the basic concepts related to the qualitative and quantitative assessment of risks associated with the importation of animal and animal products. During this 4 day course, concepts of scenario pathway modelling, probability distributions, uncertainty and variability analysis, Bayesian inference, sensitivity analysis will be presented and discussed. All the theoretical concepts will be applied using real world examples using the simulation package ModelRisk.

Module 2, "The Implementation & Analysis of Animal Health Surveillance"  will begin on August 15th,  instructed by Dr. Evan Sergeant, Director, AusVet Animal Health Services, with Dr. Carol McClure, Research Scientist, Epidemiology, Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences, Atlantic Veterinary College, and Dr. Crawford Revie, Professor, Atlantic Veterinary College and Canada Research Chair- Population Health: Epi-informatics.

This 5 day course will begin by reviewing standard methods of animal health surveillance on day 1.  Further information and exercises on alternative data driven approaches to animal health surveillance will be discussed on day 2.  The last 3 days of the course will be devoted to risk based surveillance using scenario tree modelling.  Participants are expected to bring their lap top computers to the course.

Welcome Participants!