Abstract
Understanding disease transmission routes and implications for biosecurity is critical to mitigating livestock disease outbreaks and maintaining efficient and profitable production. The goal of biosecurity is to eliminate pathogen exposure and minimize endemic pathogen impact, particularly important for foreign animal diseases that threaten U.S. animal health and the economy. We elicit swine, beef cattle, and dairy expert views on the effectiveness, feasibility, and implementation of both biosecurity measures targeting disease transmission routes and specific biosecurity measures. Biosecurity targeting direct animal-to-animal contact, semen, people, and vehicles and other fomites was identified as the most effective and feasible for the swine, beef cattle, and dairy industries. Efforts targeting airborne and arthropod transmission were ranked low for effectiveness and feasibility across all three industries. The swine industry had higher estimated implementation of biosecurity against most disease transmission routes. All-in and all-out production had the highest estimated implementation in the swine industry. In the beef cattle industry, performing daily observations by producer/employees had the highest estimated implementation. Reduced environmental viral load through pathogen reduction had the lowest estimated implementation in the swine and beef cattle industries. In the dairy industry, monitoring production records for health status changes had the highest estimated implementation, and line of separation in place for all employees entering premises had the lowest. Swine experts considered separation line for all animals entering/leaving premises and reduced environmental viral load through pathogen reduction the most and least effective and feasible, respectively. Stabilization and monitoring for affected premises and daily observations by producer/employees were identified as most effective and feasible by beef cattle and dairy experts, respectively.All-in and all-out production was rated least effective and feasible by both beef cattle and dairy experts.
Highlights
State and federal animal health officials must be prepared to help deal with new, emerging, and foreign animal diseases characterized by uncertainty and complexity
In this study we define biosecurity as “the implementation of measures that reduce the risk of disease agents being introduced and spread where biosecurity measures should be used to avoid the entry of pathogens into a herd or farm and to prevent the spread of disease to uninfected animals within a herd or to other farms, when the pathogen is already present.” [2]
33, 38, and 37 surveys completed by swine experts, beef cattle experts, and dairy experts, respectively, were used
Summary
State and federal animal health officials must be prepared to help deal with new, emerging, and foreign animal diseases characterized by uncertainty and complexity. Understanding disease transmission risks in light of current implementation of mitigating strategies can help identify opportunities for disease prevention and outbreak containment. An analysis of data from the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) indicates 32.1% of beef cow-calf operations disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, “The United States is well prepared to handle outbreaks of livestock disease currently not found in this country, such as footand-mouth disease and rinderpest.” [6]
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