Foot-and-Mouth Disease control costs compared: An Irish case study

Emma Dillon, Alan Matthews and Fiona Thorne

No 7969, 81st Annual Conference, April 2-4, 2007, Reading University from Agricultural Economics Society

Abstract: The primary objective of this paper is to evaluate alternative control strategies for a number of simulated outbreaks of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) in four agriculturally diverse Irish regions, examining for the first time, the potential role of emergency vaccination in the country. The recent EU Directive (2003/85/EC) on FMD control permits the use of emergency vaccination as part of an FMD control strategy. While the slaughter of infected animals and “dangerous contacts” (susceptible animals on epidemiologically linked holdings) remains the principal tool for tackling an outbreak, the potential use of vaccination as an adjunct to the basic culling policy is now being considered. Using an integrated approach, combining epidemiological and economic modules, the alternatives of stamping-out both alone and in conjunction with emergency vaccination are examined using hypothetical outbreaks and their control costs compared. Overall, it cannot be said, a priori, that one control option is better than the other. Choice of control strategy would appear to be highly dependent on herd density, production type and other region specific issues. This analysis has focused on control costs only; taking wider economy costs into account may however change this overall conclusion.

Keywords: Foot-and-Mouth disease; alternative control strategies; transboundary animal diseases; emergency vaccination; Livestock Production/Industries; Q1; Q17; Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-hea
Date: 2007
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://purl.umn.edu/7969 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aes007:7969

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 81st Annual Conference, April 2-4, 2007, Reading University from Agricultural Economics Society
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by AgEcon Search ().