Infectious disease control: tools

svwinden@rvc.ac.uk
Tools?
 Tools for disease control
• Test and cull (FMD 2001)
• Vaccination
• Movement restrictions
• Compartmentalisation
• Surveillance

• Costly and who’s going to pay?

 Test and cull
• Individual level
– bTB
– Johnes disease
– PI BVD
• Herd level
– FMD
– BSE
• Se/Sp of the test
 Test and cull
• Local level
– FMD 2001
– Outside in vs. inside out
• Country level
– Not really

Probabilities (spread, herd/area) and costs

 Test and cull
• Sounds easy, but how to go about this?
 Test and cull
• Or this? Or should I say these?
 Test and cull
• Who is paying for this?
• Varies per disease
– Endemic: farmer
– Epidemic: government
– Zoonotic: farmer/ government
• Control of the rules of ‘the game’

Probabilities (spread, herd/area) and costs

 Vaccination
• Timing
– Seasonal disease
• Strategically
– Buffer area (FMD)
– Whole country (BTV)
– Dependent on threat (NCD)
• Level
– Herd
– Area/ Country
 Vaccination
• How effective is a vaccine in an endemic situation?
• Delay in response/booster course
• Depends on the vaccine
– BVD/ Leptospirosis: poor
– Salmonella: mediocre
– IBR/ Clostridium: good
 Vaccination
• Could be a stage in test and cull

• DIVA IBR, soon bTB?

• Availability of the vaccine
• Who pays for it?

• Current hot debate on this regarding AI H5N1

 Movement restrictions
• Animals (hosts) are the best media to transport disease
over a long period in time and a long distance
• C&D

• 72 hour stand still (FMD, CSF)

• Bovine tuberculosis
• Brucella abortus
 Movement restrictions
• To buy time in order to assess the situation
• Could be relaxed over time
• Other species involved (horses)
• By vehicle and by foot!
• Public footpaths

• Conflict with trade/farmers

 Zone-ing
• When tired

• Regionalisation or compartimentalisation

• When the disease is mainly localised in an area and the

movement restrictions can be lifted in the non affected
areas
UK Elections 2010
bTB
 Compartmentalisation
• Useful tool to keep restrictions in one area

• And to release animals in an other area

 Surveillance
• What is surveillance?

It is the repeated measurement, recording and review of data

related to the occurrence of events, such as disease.
 What to do with the data?
Act on it.
1. There is no point collecting data for its own sake
2. Farmers will pay for data collection provided they perceive an
economic benefit doing so
3. So the outcome for the farmer of disease surveillance is
improved disease control
 Seen before?
• Farm Health Plan
• Farm Assurance
• Proactive Farm Plan
• Farm Health Planning
 Tools for disease control
• Diverse but all hinging on the same principles:
• Find it (Surveillance)
• Fix it (Movement restrictions, Vaccination, Compartmentalisation)
• Kill it (Test and Cull)

• KEEP IT OUT