F. Dall'acqua,  C. Paladini,  L. Savini, C. Ippoliti,  A. Conte, R. Meiswinkel, D. Zippo, P. Calistri

World organisation for animal health (Office International des Épizooties) Collaborating Centre for Veterinary Training,
Epidemiology, Food Safety and Animal Welfare, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise
‘G. Caporale’, Campo Boario, 64100 Teramo, Italia.

A web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) has been recently implemented for the surveillance of bluetongue a vector-borne animal disease transmitted by insects of the genus Culicoides (Diptera, Ceratopogonidae). This surveillance network was part of a one year long cooperation project involving several Balkan countries. A disease transmitted by flying insects, like BT, is a transboundary problem and cannot be prevented through individual national measures and animal trade control policy only. Since other vector-borne diseases are periodically detected in the Mediterranean Basin (such as West Nile Fever) or are emerging zoonoses endangering the Mediterranean area (such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever), the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the Abruzzo Region decided to fund a further project both to strengthen the BT surveillance network, and to extend it to these two emerging and zoonotic diseases in Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean countries. The web site, with multi-user access, will be easily accessed by a generic Internet browser.