Image Based Surveillance System

The vendor is required to provide passive surveillance system that generates standardized information on tick species and eventually on tick-borne diseases across all provinces and territories.
- This project should be achieved using a collaborative and standardized approach to the collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of image-based tick surveillance data and public health messages.
- Maintain and enhance a national, population and image based, distribution passive surveillance
system for tick species in country.
- Ensure standardized and quality assured data to enable the generation of timely, comparable, country -wide statistics.
- Create a standardized national passive testing initiative by requesting and subsampling specimens from digital submissions.
- Image-based tick surveillance system is designed to collect information on tick species and allows for monitoring of the distribution of emerging tick populations in country and indirectly, the pathogens they may transmit in some specific areas.
- The data collected through this surveillance system would be accessible to be used by all-level of public health authorities to guide identification of where disease and other tick-borne diseases risk is occurring and directing preventive and control measures to appropriate areas.
- Image-based tick identification would also allow for rapid dissemination of information about at-risk areas, assessment of disease and other emerging tick-borne diseases risk after a tick bite and for healthcare providers to determine requisite treatment
- The surveillance system would cover country provinces and territories, and any introduction of invasive tick species could be detected in a timely manner
- Photos uploaded to the system of a new species, would prompt rapid detection and awareness
- The results would help jurisdictions monitoring the trend of endemic and emerging tick-borne pathogens
- Data collected through the passive image-based tick surveillance system will be used by agency to produce the annual tick analyses, including distribution maps, with accompanying public health recommendations to guide actions in these at-risk areas
- Furthermore, image-based surveillance will decrease the pressure related to tick identification and pathogen testing
- The goal of this project is to maintain and enhance a national passive surveillance system that generates standardized information on tick species and eventually on tick-borne diseases across all provinces and territories.
- The image-based tick surveillance system must be a validated citizen science project which invites the public to participate in the monitoring of ticks in country by submitting tick photos on an electronic platform for identification by a professional.
- The platform and a free mobile application must be in place and ready upon contract award with the proof of concept having been validated.
- Furthermore, tick species records, map and gallery of tick's photos would need to be made available for public consultation on the platform.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year