That gentle Lab sleeping blissfully at your feet, those two tabbies grooming each other on the sofa: They could be unlikely recruits to the war on terrorism. Under a new surveillance system developed at Purdue University, pets may provide early warning of an impending epidemic of dangerous diseases such as SARS or avian flu — or even alert us to a bioterror threat.

That's the intent, at least, of the Purdue program, which uses the computerized database of a nationwide chain of veterinary hospitals to spot disease outbreaks. The rationale: Dogs and cats share a home environment with their owners and are exposed to the same germs. But the pets have a faster metabolism, so they will exhibit disease symptoms sooner than humans. This makes them excellent sentinels for certain so-called zoonotic illnesses — ones that can spread from animals to humans.

The Los Angeles Times has the rest of the article here.

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