Thank you for this Snowy Owl -

"Understanding and monitoring large-scale disease patterns
is critical for planning and directing public-health responses
during pandemics [1?5]. In order to address the growing
threats of global infectious disease pandemics such as
influenza [6], severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) [7],
and bioterrorism [8], advanced disease-surveillance systems
have been deployed worldwide to monitor epidemiological
data such as hospital visits [9,10], pharmaceutical orders [11],
and laboratory tests [12]. Improving the overall detection
capabilities of these systems can have a wide practical impact.
Furthermore, it would be beneficial to reduce the vulnerability
of many of these systems to shifts in health-care
utilization that can occur during public-health emergencies
such as epidemics and pandemics [13?15] or during major
public events [16]."

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/4/6/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0040210-L.pdf