Artificial Intelligence for the Prevention, Surveillance, and Control of Animal Infectious Diseases

Animal infectious diseases remain a major threat to animal health and welfare, livestock and aquaculture sustainability, and public health through zoonotic risk. At the same time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful tool for advancing the understanding, prevention, and control of infectious diseases in animal populations. Machine learning and related data-driven approaches are increasingly being used to model pathogen transmission, identify environmental drivers of disease emergence, predict outbreak risk, optimize vaccination strategies, strengthen antimicrobial stewardship, and integrate complex epidemiological, immunological, genomic, and ecological datasets. These developments offer new opportunities to support more targeted, timely, and effective infectious disease management across production animals, companion animals, wildlife, and aquatic species. (frontiersin.org)Despite this promise, major barriers still limit the effective translation of AI into veterinary infectious disease research and practice. These include fragmented and heterogeneous datasets, limited interoperability across surveillance and laboratory systems, small or imbalanced datasets for emerging pathogens, and persistent concerns regarding robustness, interpretability, transparency, and ethical governance. Addressing these challenges is essential if AI-enabled approaches are to generate biologically meaningful insights and deliver practical value for disease prevention and control in real-world settings. (frontiersin.org)This Research Topic aims to critically assess and advance the development, validation, and responsible application of AI in veterinary infectious diseases. The focus is on studies that improve understanding of infection biology and host responses, support prevention and control strategies, strengthen surveillance and epidemiological intelligence, and advance vaccinology and related interventions. Particular interest will be given to work that integrates AI with One Health perspectives, including environmental drivers of disease emergence, antimicrobial resistance, and the role of wildlife reservoirs and vectors in pathogen transmission. In line with the section scope, this Topic is intended to prioritize infectious disease relevance and translational value rather than purely diagnostic applications. (frontiersin.org)We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:AI models for infectious disease surveillance, outbreak prediction, risk mapping, and early warning systemsAI-enabled analysis of pathogen transmission dynamics, disease emergence, and epidemiological trendsApplication of AI to host–pathogen interactions, infection biology, immunological responses, and pathogen evolutionAI in vaccine discovery, antigen prioritization, strain selection, formulation design, and optimization of vaccination programsIntegration of clinical, laboratory, genomic, environmental, and population-level data to support infectious disease prevention and controlAI approaches for antimicrobial stewardship and prediction of antimicrobial resistance patterns in animal pathogensUse of AI to study wildlife reservoirs, vectors, and cross-species transmission relevant to animal and zoonotic infectionsExplainable, transparent, and trustworthy AI methods for veterinary infectious disease research and decision supportEthical, legal, and regulatory considerations, including bias mitigation, data governance, and privacy-preserving frameworksReal-world implementation studies evaluating the impact of AI on biosecurity, disease control, animal health outcomes, and sustainability of animal production systemsWe welcome submissions in the form of Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, Data Reports, Technology and Code papers, and other article types appropriate to the section and Research Topic. Topic editors: Dhruv Desai, Naveen Kumar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/75940/artificial-intelligence-for-the-prevention-surveillance-and-control-of-animal-infectious-diseases