Digital platforms can transform animal health

Digital platforms empower people to access and share data that can have a huge impact on animal health and livelihoods. Discover how data sharing is helping Latvia strengthen its preparedness against re-emerging diseases, and how countries in South America are developing systems to exchange electronic veterinary certifications. Making trade faster, more efficient, and more secure. 

In February 2026, a dog tested positive for rabies in Germany. The health authorities found that the dog entered the European Union in November 2025, through Latvia. They used an immediate notification on the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) to alert Santa Ansonska’s colleagues at the Division of Information Analysis and Emergency Response of the Food and Veterinary Service of Latvia. 

Santa Ansonska is a senior expert in the Animal Infectious Diseases Surveillance Division of the Department of Veterinary Surveillance. Right after being alerted of the case by her colleagues, she had to trace and verify the identification of each dog and cat in the shipment, using another digital platform called TRACES. This system supports the exchange of information on digital certifications required for the import and export of animals, animal products, and plants within, in and out of the European Union. It took two days for Ms. Ansonska to collect all the information needed, then she used the data available to send an official notification to the European Commission, to share the information with other countries that may be interested in the case. 

Moving animals from one country to another is a normal activity linked to trade. This concerns not only companion animals but also livestock. With any movement of animals comes the risk of spreading diseases from one area to another. This is where surveillance, integrated data systems, and digital tools become essential. The challenge is not the presence of a disease in a country, but having access to the right information at the right moment to respond effectively. As Santa Ansonska explains: 
“We should all fear the unknown. But if data are available quickly, we can be more proactive and not just react to the situation.” 

Get ready, use data 

Prevention and control do not just apply to rabies. Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease of livestock. It severely reduces productivity of animals and is regarded as a major threat by farmers and veterinarians around the world. As the 2026 State of the World’s Animal Health report points out, after years of absence, FMD has recently reappeared in Europe and is also spreading into new areas of Africa. The epidemiological dynamics of the disease around the world are concerning animal health experts, farmers and traders. But there are measures that can be taken to reduce risks. Timely and transparent reporting allows countries to take decisions based on science and evidence. This is especially important when Veterinary Services operate with limited budgets and must reallocate resources quickly to prevent larger crises.

As soon as we knew that FMD had reappeared in Europe, we had to take many actions to reallocate resources, reorganise our work, communicate the risk to the people concerned, and develop preventive measures before the disease could enter the country. Thanks to information systems such as ADIS and WAHIS, we have both the evidence that the disease is present in an area and the data we need to explain to decision makers why this is a threat for us.

Santa Ansonska, senior expert in the Animal Infectious Diseases Surveillance Division of the Department of Veterinary Surveillance, Latvia.

Letting data speak (to each other) 

The Animal Disease Information System (ADIS) and the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS) are two separate platforms created by the European Union and the World Organisation for Animal Health, respectively, to enable countries to share data on animal diseases present in their territory. The two systems were interconnected between 2024 and 2025, with Latvia playing a key role as a pilot country at the start of the process. The purpose of this interconnection was to ease the workload of animal health officers across the European Union and to facilitate information exchange at a global level: information is entered once, and users of both platforms can access it. 

The point with data is that they are useful only when they can be connected to each other and accessed easily, allowing professionals, researchers and other users to reuse them. The same applies to veterinary certificates, where the stakes of digitalisation are high. Today, many countries still produce paper veterinary certificates for the export of animals and animal products. The production and physical exchange of these documents takes time, is more prone to mistakes or alterations, and requires duplicate efforts to input and extract information for importers and exporters. 

Simon Padilla is an economic affairs officer at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Within the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) he has worked for many years on the multilateral exchange of electronic certificates, and like many people involved in data management, he notes that the main challenge is not creating the platform but producing information that can actually be used. 

“The technology behind an international system to exchange certificates is actually simple,” explains Simon Padilla. “The difficult part is making sure that the data is correct and reliable. And that is something that involves the entire certification process. You need to work with the inspectors and with the different business operators to ensure that everything functions properly. It requires a great deal of coordination to make sure that your certification system works well and that everyone who contributes to it is doing their job correctly.” 

As of today, the Inter American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is partnering with the United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC) to develop a new system for the exchange of electronic veterinary certificates. 

Funded by STDF, the project entered the platform development phase in February 2026, and WOAH standards for electronic veterinary certification will serve as the reference to create a common foundation for participating countries. 

How trade can enhance animal health 

Harmonisation is a major challenge for any country that wants to exchange safe products. Hundreds of different veterinary certificates exist, depending on the exported commodity, the destination market and the specific requirements that apply. The new project led by IICA aims to begin with a limited set of commodities traded within the Americas, in order to understand how countries can harmonise their certification needs and how this process could later be expanded at the global level. The ultimate purpose is to make people’s work easier and to strengthen relationships built through trade. In this context, animal health plays a central role and can benefit greatly from these efforts, as Simon Padilla explains: 

“If you want to digitise a veterinary certification system, you must revise the entire process. And when you do that, sometimes you identify bottlenecks or critical issues that must be addressed. So, by facilitating trade, you are also strengthening your animal health control system. We want to reduce paperwork, time and costs for international trade, while minimising errors, disruptions and fraud. And when you reduce the possibility of errors or fraud, you build trust and you facilitate trade, but at the same time you strengthen health protection. Both concepts are connected: animal health and trade. The aim is to make the whole process more efficient and safer for everybody, including importers, exporters, business operators, regulators and consumers. But farmers and veterinarians on the ground will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this project.”