A Cost-Effectiveness Study of Animal Disease Eradication Strategies: Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Ireland

The primary focus of this poster paper is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of 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. With the increasing threat of transboundary animal diseases due to globalisation, wider market integration and increased animal movement it is important that such an evaluation of control and eradication strategies be undertaken and contingency plans be put in place. The new EU Directive (2003/85/EC) on FMD control permits the use of emergency vaccination as part of an FMD control strategy. The slaughter of infected animals and "dangerous contacts" (susceptible animals on epidemiologically linked holdings) remains the principal tool for tackling an outbreak, but the potential use of vaccination as an adjunct to the basic culling policy is now being considered. Using an integrated approach, combining an epidemiological model and an economic model, alternative control strategies are compared here during hypothetical outbreaks using a computer-simulation model and their cost-effectiveness assessed. The study provides outputs in terms of a range of epidemiological, economic and resource requirement measures under a wide range of different scenarios for each of the alternative control strategies.