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Guidelines for Wildlife Disease Outbreak Investigation
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14/09/2026
The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) gratefully acknowledges the leadership of Steve Unwin and Erin Davis from Wildlife Health Australia (WHA) in producing these guidelines, as well as the work of contributors from WOAH WildNet (listed in alphabetical order by name of organisation):
Joe Cashmore (WHA), AUSTRALIA
Jemma Bergfeld and Frank Wong from the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (CSIRO), AUSTRALIA
Damien Joly from the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC-RCSF), CANADA
Casey Barton Behravesh from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)
Kelly Bateman from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences (CEFAS), UNITED KINGDOM
Mathieu Bourgarel from the Centre international en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), FRANCE
China Animal Health and Epidemiology Center (CAHEC), PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC)
Sascha Knauf from the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI), GERMANY
Gonxun Zhong from the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute (CAAS), PRC
Jessica Vanhomwegen from the Institut Pasteur (IPASTEUR), FRANCE
Eva María Sierra Pulpillo and Antonio Fernández from the Institute Universitario de Sandidad Animal y Seguridad Alimentaria, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (IUSA_ULPGC), SPAIN
Jandouwe Villinger from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), KENYA
Federica Giorda from the Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Liguria e Valle d’Aosta ( IZSPLVA), ITALY
Sarin Suwanpakdee, Anuwat Wiratsudakul and Witthawat Wiriyarat from the Thailand- National Wildlife Health Center (Thailand- NWHC) and the Monitoring and Surveillance Center for Zoonotic Diseases in Wildlife and Exotic Animals (MoZWE) at Mahidol University, THAILAND
Anna Wong, Charlene Judith Fernandez, Deborah Goh, Chin Mian Lim, Dion Lim from the Centre for Wildlife Forensics (CWF) and the National Parks Board Singapore (NParks), SINGAPORE
Alison Lubisi from the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (arc.agri), SOUTH AFRICA
Lotta Berg from the Swedish Centre for Animal Welfare (SCAW), SWEDEN
LeAnn White from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), USA
Anita Michel from the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases at the University Pretoria (UP), SOUTH AFRICA
Sarah Olson and Christian Walzer from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), USA
Paolo Mulatti from the Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe), ITALY.
These guidelines serve two related purposes. First, they set out key considerations and best practices for investigating suspected disease outbreaks in wildlife populations, in line with the One Health approach and standards set out by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). Second, they provide a source document that national, sub-national and local authorities can use to develop their own pro- tocols for wildlife disease outbreak investiga- tions, adapted to their respective mandates, capacities and contexts. The guidelines do not constitute an operational protocol and are not intended to be applied verbatim. Rather, they provide the structure, principles and reference material on which a fit-for-purpose local pro- tocol can be based.
