Integrating epidemiological and economic models to estimate the cost of simulated foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Brazil

TL;DR

This study combines epidemiological and economic models to evaluate the costs of hypothetical foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Brazil, highlighting the cost-effectiveness of early, aggressive control strategies.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated modeling approach to assess economic impacts of FMD control scenarios in Brazil, considering species-specific transmission and spatial factors.

Findings

Depopulation is the most expensive control measure.

Higher depopulation rates reduce long-term costs.

Early resource allocation speeds eradication and minimizes total costs.

Abstract

The introduction of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) leads to substantial economic impacts through animal loss, decreased livestock and meat production, increased government and private spending on control and eradication measures, and trade restrictions. This study evaluates the direct cost-effectiveness of four control and eradication scenarios of hypothetical FMD outbreaks in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Our model simulation considered scenarios with depopulation of detected farms and emergency vaccination and two enhanced scenarios featuring increased capacity for emergency vaccination and depopulation. FMD outbreaks were simulated using a multi-host, single-pathogen Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered model incorporating species-specific transmission probabilities, within-farm dynamics, and spatial transmission factors. The economic cost evaluation encompassed animal elimination (a.k.a. depopulation), carcass disposal, visits by animal health officials, laboratory testing, emergency vaccination, and sanitary barriers (a.k.a. traffic-control points), and movement restrictions due to control zones. Our results provided a range of predicted costs for a potential reintroduction of FMD ranging from $977,128 to $52,275,811. Depopulation was the most expensive, followed by local traffic control points and emergency vaccination. Our results demonstrated that higher rates of depopulation, or depopulation combined with vaccination, were the most effective strategies to reduce long-term economic impacts despite higher initial costs. Allocating more resources early in the outbreak was cost-effective in minimizing the overall effect and achieving faster eradication.