Disaster response: Reporting diseases

Explore the importance of disease reporting for veterinary first responders. Learn how to report and respond to zoonotic, transboundary, and foreign animal diseases (FADs), and how to mitigate potential impacts on human and environmental health. 

This session satisfies core competency 6 of AVMA’s Veterinary First Responder Certificate Program. It originally was presented at AVMA Convention 2022. 

Participants can expect to learn about:

  • Reporting and responding to zoonotic, transboundary, and foreign animal diseases 
  • How to mitigate potential impacts on human and environmental health 
  • Federal and state agencies that have jurisdictional authority over these types of diseases 



Since 2016, Dr. Dee Ellis has been involved in various research, capacity-building, and veterinary training initiatives at Texas A&M AgriLife. Previously, he spent over 30 years with the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), leading the agency's emergency management planning and response activities for animals, and helping develop the state’s first animal in disaster response plans. His last six years at TAHC were as the Texas state veterinarian. 

Dr. Ellis has responded to various large-scale animal disease outbreaks including highly pathogenic avian influenza, cattle fever ticks, and Virulent Newcastle disease. In 2001, following an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom, he helped the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Veterinary Services develop national catastrophic disease response plans.

As the lead for Texas' animal response efforts, Dr. Ellis responded directly to—and led agency efforts in—disaster responses after hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. He worked directly with veterinarians statewide to include them in response plans for livestock and companion animals. He was instrumental in helping formalize companion animal issues into Texas’ disaster response plans after Hurricane Katrina. 

Dr. Ellis has worked extensively in Mexico and Africa, and participated in efforts by the OIE and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to develop global templates for animal emergency response plans. He was the founding chairman of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association (TVMA) Disaster Preparedness Committee, and the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA)’s Animal Health Emergency Management Council. He has served on the board of directors of the TVMA representing large-animal practitioners, and as the vice-chair of the AVMA Committee on Disaster and Emergency Issues.

He was the first veterinarian to receive the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) Career Excellence Award, in 2014.