Exploring pig trade patterns to inform the design of risk-based disease surveillance and control strategies.

C Guinat,A Morris,A Relun,B Wall,L Dixon,D U Pfeiffer

doi:10.1038/srep28429

Abstract

An understanding of the patterns of animal contact networks provides essential information for the design of risk-based animal disease surveillance and control strategies. This study characterises pig movements throughout England and Wales between 2009 and 2013 with a view to characterising spatial and temporal patterns, network topology and trade communities. Data were extracted from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA)’s RADAR (Rapid Analysis and Detection of Animal-related Risks) database, and analysed using descriptive and network approaches. A total of 61,937,855 pigs were moved through 872,493 movements of batches in England and Wales during the 5-year study period. Results show that the network exhibited scale-free and small-world topologies, indicating the potential for diseases to quickly spread within the pig industry. The findings also provide suggestions for how risk-based surveillance strategies could be optimised in the country by taking account of highly connected holdings, geographical regions and time periods with the greatest number of movements and pigs moved, as these are likely to be at higher risk for disease introduction. This study is also the first attempt to identify trade communities in the country, information which could be used to facilitate the pig trade and maintain disease-free status across the country in the event of an outbreak.

Highlights

Ongoing outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis in the UK has been highlighted[20]
Understanding of animal movement networks in terms of these network features can support compartmentalisation approaches for disease control, which are encouraged by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO)[25,26] and may support the possibility of continued international trade even in the event of a disease outbreak in a particular country or region
This study presents an analysis of the space-time patterns of movements of pig batches and total pigs moved per year between pig holdings, gathering areas, markets and slaughterhouses in England and Wales, based on data covering a 5-year period (2009–2013) extracted from the RADAR database

Summary

Introduction

Ongoing outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in the UK has been highlighted[20]. There are significant knowledge gaps in relation to the overall structure of pig movement networks in Great Britain, which compromises the ability to design effective risk-based disease surveillance and control strategies. The aim of this study was to explore the pig movement networks throughout England and Wales with a view to characterising spatial and temporal patterns, monthly network topology and trade communities. This analysis was based on data covering 5 years (2009–2013) which had been extracted from the RADAR database. The results from this study will make an important contribution to the knowledge base informing the design of risk-based disease surveillance and control programmes for the British pig industry

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion