5. CONCLUSION
As diseases evolve and change through time, and countries are becoming more efficient at recording disease events, updating systems is the way to move forward. Surveys such as this one give insights of what can be done to improve current animal information systems. This survey provided a general overview of the needs, preferences and constraints that professionals have with current animal information systems or risk analysis tools. From these results, it is clear that for professionals who work in animal and public health, epidemiology and surveillance, animal health systems and risk analysis tools are used in their daily work. Not only to obtain data, but also to produce reports, and gather disease information. The overall majority is homogenous in what preferences they have regarding the type of information, and from many different parts of the world. It is essential for animal information systems not only to contain data on incidence and cases but also be more specific regarding risk pathways and spread assessment. The data or information should be i) easily accessible keeping in consideration privacy issues, and accessible from different regions of the world as well as ii) user friendly. Requirements for ease and flexibility of data extraction were highly rated. Standard data formats were preferred as this expedited the work required for risk estimation analyses or simple descriptive report production. This could ease and strengthen analysis done by different professionals, which would improve surveillance and as such impede future animal disease incursions.