Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Consideration of different outbreak conditions in the evaluation of preventive culling and emergency vaccination to control foot and mouth disease epidemics.
- Journal:
- Research in veterinary science
- Year:
- 2011
- Authors:
- Traulsen, Imke et al.
- Affiliation:
- Institute of Animal Breeding and Husbandry · Germany
Plain-English summary
In recent outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, some healthy animals have been killed to stop the spread of the illness. Researchers looked at using emergency vaccination as a better option instead of culling healthy animals. They used a computer model to compare the two methods, taking into account factors like how the disease spreads through the air, how close farms are to each other, and how quickly control measures can be put in place. The study found that combining a 1 km culling zone around the infected farm with a 1-10 km vaccination zone was the most effective way to prevent more farms from getting sick. Overall, emergency vaccination proved to be a successful strategy, especially in areas with many farms close together.
Abstract
In recent foot and mouth disease outbreaks, many healthy animals have been culled to prevent disease transmission. Emergency vaccination is discussed as an alternative to culling of unaffected animals. A spatial and temporal Monte-Carlo simulation model was used to compare preventive culling and emergency vaccination. Different outbreaks are described using additional influence factors such as airborne spread, farm density, type of index-case farm and delay until establishment of the control strategies. The fewest farms were infected establishing a combined strategy including a 1 km preventive culling and 1-10 km emergency vaccination zone around each outbreak farm. Taking the number of culled and vaccinated farms into account, vaccination around the first diagnosed farm combined with the baseline strategy (culling of outbreak farms, protection and surveillance zone, contact tracing) is to be preferred. In the present study, emergency vaccination was an effective control strategy especially in densely populated regions.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21300387/