IMPROVING THE WORK OF RUSSIAN REGIONAL VETERINARY SERVICES TO PREVENT THE OCCURRENCE AND SPREAD OF PLAGUE OF SMALL RUMINANTS USING GIS TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

Small ruminant plague (SRP) is a highly contagious, cross-border disease. The pathogenic agent of the plague can infect up to 100 % of susceptible animal species. The infectious pathology under consideration has never been registered in our country, but it causes catastrophic economic losses to small-scale cattle breeding in countries bordering the Russian Federation. Mortality from this disease in the foci of primary occurrence can reach 100%, and in stationary unfavorable geographical objects-up to 50.0 %. Thus, in epizootological mapping, the practical application of GIS is associated with the display of significant information for veterinary medicine on maps in dynamics. Due to the active introduction of geoinformation technologies in epizootology, which allow working with a large amount of data in real time, the process of creating epizootological maps becomes less labor-intensive. The possibilities of changing vector and raster information, a wide range of tools for managing databases make them the optimal tool used in cartography. As a measure to improve the work of regional veterinary services on the territory of the Russian Federation, it is proposed to create a structural unit on the basis of the veterinary services of the subjects, in which a department for working with GIS technologies will function. The purpose of the functioning of this unit is to monitor the epizootic situation for infectious animal diseases, including emergent cross-border infections (SRP, etc.) using digital cartography. This will allow for more complete epizootological control and supervision of cross-border infectious diseases, including SRP. If it appears on the territory of the Russian Federation, the use of GIS technologies will significantly facilitate the solution of the problem of its elimination.