DHIS2 provides Ministries of Agriculture, Livestock, and Veterinary Services with a flexible platform for timely reporting and analysis of data on animal health events, outbreaks, laboratory results, and control campaigns, supporting routine and event-based surveillance and strengthening early warning and response.
Animal health surveillance is a cornerstone of veterinary services, providing the evidence base for disease control, certification, and trade. Global estimates suggest that animal diseases reduce livestock productivity by up to 20% annually, underlining the importance of sustained surveillance systems supported by digital platforms like DHIS2.
With robust surveillance systems, veterinary authorities can detect abnormal disease events early, monitor trends, and guide targeted interventions. Surveillance data informs decisions on vaccination, movement control, biosecurity, and resource allocation to minimize losses, protect livelihoods, and ensure safe trade.
DHIS2 provides a flexible, open-source platform that supports Ministries of Agriculture, Livestock, and Veterinary Services in managing data on animal health events, outbreaks, laboratory results, and control campaigns. It enables structured, timely reporting from the field to the national level, with tools for analysis, visualization, and response coordination. DHIS2 supports both routine and event-based surveillance, helping veterinary services strengthen early warning and response capacities.
The DHIS2 Animal Health toolkit provides a practical starting point for countries to configure and adapt DHIS2 for their context. Developed from the experience of countries that have already adopted DHIS2 for animal health surveillance, it offers a reference configuration that reflects real-world practices while remaining fully adaptable to national requirements.
DHIS2 animal health systems can operate as independent surveillance platforms for Ministries of Livestock and actors working in veterinary and animal health. They can also be integrated into a DHIS2 platform alongside public health surveillance data to enhance data sharing for zoonotic diseases, in line with the WHO’s collaborative surveillance framework to strengthen the global architecture for health emergency preparedness, response, and resilience (HEPR).
The DHIS2 platform includes built-in functionalities that support all key components of animal health surveillance: from field detection to analysis, response and coordination across the veterinary system.
While DHIS2 can be configured for a wide range of animal health surveillance activities, we have also developed reference configurations for specific use cases. These examples are based on field experience and can serve as a starting point for countries to design or adapt their own systems within existing DHIS2 environments.
Supports event-level data collection based on early warning data variables and visualization through a dynamic dashboard.
For tracking, reporting, and analyzing human rabies cases within countries’ health management information systems (HMIS).
Explore our interactive map to see where countries are using DHIS2 for animal health surveillance.
Here are just a few examples from a selection of countries that show how DHIS2 can make an impact in animal health programs:
Veterinarians, para-veterinarians, district animal health workers and community members in Zanzibar use the DHIS2 mobile application to report unusual events, which can then be triaged, investigated and verified at higher levels.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Health uses DHIS2 for a national-scale, electronic One Health platform, and has piloted a custom e-Zoonosis DHIS2 mobile app in Bali to support zoonotic disease surveillance and response.
In Kongo Central, DRC, a DHIS2-based zoonotic surveillance system captures data on animal diseases, bite cases, vaccinations, and laboratory results, enabling real-time analysis and coordination between veterinary and public health services for faster, evidence-based outbreak response.
Watch these informative webinars and presentations for more detail on using DHIS2 for animal health.
In this presentation from the 2023 Annual Conference, a member of the US CDC presents their collaborative work with the HISP Centre and other stakeholders on the development of a zoonoses toolkit for DHIS2 to support early warning, improved response, and reporting.
At the DHIS2 Annual Conference 2024, countries including Guinea, Zanzibar, Togo, and Namibia showcased how DHIS2 strengthens animal disease surveillance, data integration, and early warning systems. Partners from CDC, SILAB, and UiO shared lessons on improving data quality, collaboration, and digital tools for faster outbreak detection and response.
At the DHIS2 Annual Conference 2025, the session demonstrated how countries use DHIS2 to bolster animal health surveillance within a One Health framework, highlighted GBADs’ work linking disease data to economic metrics, and explored interoperability, early warning systems, and field tools for veterinary and community-level reporting.
Get started with DHIS2 for animal health with these helpful resources.
One Health is an integrated approach to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems in a sustainable way. Recognizing that the health of humans, animals, plants, and the wider environment are closely linked and interdependent, One Health emphasizes cross-sectoral collaboration at all levels to protect our ecosystems and address health challenges like the emergence of infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and food safety. DHIS2 provides an integrated platform that supports unified One Health approaches by bringing data together across sectors, helping governments, partners and communities to monitor, coordinate, and respond holistically to these complex, cross-cutting challenges.
Development of the DHIS2 Animal Health toolkit was supported by CDC funding through the One Health initiative.
