Abstract
Simple SummaryPeste des petits ruminants (PPR), also known as sheep and goat plague, is a highly contagious animal disease affecting small ruminants and camels. It is caused by a virus belonging to the genus Morbillivirus, family Paramixoviridae. Once newly introduced, the virus can infect up to 90 percent of an animal herd. A PPR outbreak is an emergency due to its rapid spread and high animal mortality rate. This study simulated three control strategies of PPR spread among animals in the United Arab Emirates. These strategies include implementing mass vaccination, ring vaccination and ceased vaccination strategies, combined with or without strict animal movement control simultaneously. The simulation results compared the level of the effectiveness and direct government costs for each of the three strategies. Such results aid the decision-makers in the country and globally in line with the World Animal Health Organization’s goal to eradicate the disease by 2030.Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an important infectious viral disease of domestic small ruminants that threatens the food security and sustainable livelihood of farmers across Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The objective of this research is to analyze the disease’s spread and its impacts on direct government costs through conducting three simulations of different control strategies to reduce and quickly eradicate PPR from the United Arab Emirates in the near future. A Modified Animal Disease Spread Model was developed in this study to suit the conditions of the United Arab Emirates. The initial scenario represents when mass vaccination is ceased, and moderate movement restrictions are applied. The second scenario is based on mass vaccination and stamping out the disease, whereas the third simulation scenario assumes mass and ring vaccination when needed, very strict movement control, and stamping out. This study found that the third scenario is the most effective in controlling and eradicating PPR from the UAE. The outbreak duration in days was reduced by 57% and the number of infected animals by 77% when compared to the other scenarios. These results are valuable to the country’s animal health decision-makers and the government’s efforts to report to the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) regarding the progress made towards declaration of the disease’s eradication. They are also useful to other concerned entities in other Middle Eastern, North African, and Asian countries where the disease is spreading.
Highlights
This scenario represents a strategy that recognizes the initial situations when the country, here the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has already controlled the disease in areas where it is highly endemic, mass vaccination is ceased, and moderate movement restrictions are applied. This scenario represents the case where efforts and the control strategy are based on mass vaccination and stamping out the disease to reduce the impact of Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) at the national level to the minimum level possible
The inter-regional consultative meeting on the FMD and PPR situation, labelled as an OIE/FAO GF TADs event and held in Jordan in 2014, considered PPR’s spread across the Middle East and North Africa and other regions in Asia, and pointed to vaccination as a very effective tool, but it should not be considered as the only tool, and instead should be combined with other tools, in particular the control of the movement of live animals
The meeting recommended the preparation of specific tools, including a monitoring and evaluation tool, a post-vaccination monitoring tool, a PPR Global Research and Expertise Network (PPR-GREN) to assess the socioeconomic impact of PPR in livestock production, livelihoods and food security, and cost/benefit analysis of PPR control options used when preparing national control programs and financial project proposals [20]
Summary
This section includes a detailed description of the study data and the method applied in this study. The total population of all of the animals considered in this study was nearly 3 million heads. In this model, a cluster of animals was called a “unit”, which was the basis of the simulation. All small farms had 30 animals or less of one type or a mixture of various species (sheep, goats, and camels). The majority, 14,914 farms, representing 60% of the farms in the country, harbored either sheep or goats or both sheep and goats in this study, and these were considered as one type of production due to the epidemiological similarity between the two species when it comes to PPR spread. This study does not assume any PPR infections to occur at the dairy cattle farms
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