Epidemic modelling of bovine tuberculosis in cattle herds and badgers in Ireland

TL;DR

This study uses stochastic epidemic modeling to analyze bovine tuberculosis transmission in Irish cattle and badgers, highlighting the significant role of badger-to-cattle transmission and potential disease reduction strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a validated epidemic model emphasizing badger-to-cattle transmission as a key factor in bovine TB spread in Ireland.

Findings

Badger-to-cattle transmission is more significant than between-herd transmission.

Eliminating badger-to-cattle transmission could substantially reduce bovine TB levels.

Model validation confirms the importance of badger culling in disease control.

Abstract

Bovine tuberculosis, a disease that affects cattle and badgers in Ireland, was studied via stochastic epidemic modeling using incidence data from the Four Area Project (Griffin et al., 2005). The Four Area Project was a large scale field trial conducted in four diverse farming regions of Ireland over a five-year period (1997-2002) to evaluate the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis incidence in cattle herds. Based on the comparison of several models, the model with no between-herd transmission and badger-to-herd transmission proportional to the total number of infected badgers culled was best supported by the data. Detailed model validation was conducted via model prediction, identifiability checks and sensitivity analysis. The results suggest that badger-to-cattle transmission is of more importance than between-herd transmission and that if there was no badger-to-herd transmission, levels of bovine tuberculosis in cattle herds in Ireland could decrease considerably.