animal disease detective

As a protection against the possible transfer of infectious diseases from animals to humans, we now have the animal disease detective who combines the skills of a vet with the training of a police detective in conducting interviews, collecting data and doing contact tracing.   The more formal name for this role is veterinary epidemiologist.  In the hope that we can detect the existence of diseases like COVID-19 before they begin to spread to the human population, funding is being provided to support a group of experts in this field. The same process is done for the human population by virologists, popularly referred to as disease detectives or virus detectives..