Abstract
Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly infectious disease that affects cloven-hoofed livestock and wildlife. FMD has been a problem for decades, which has led to various measures to control, eradicate and prevent FMD by National Veterinary Services worldwide. Currently, the identification of areas that are at risk of FMD virus incursion and spread is a priority for FMD target surveillance after FMD is eradicated from a given country or region. In our study, a knowledge-driven spatial model was built to identify risk areas for FMD occurrence and to evaluate FMD surveillance performance in Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. For this purpose, multi-criteria decision analysis was used as a tool to seek multiple and conflicting criteria to determine a preferred course of action. Thirteen South American experts analyzed 18 variables associated with FMD introduction and dissemination pathways in Rio Grande do Sul. As a result, FMD higher risk areas were identified at international borders and in the central region of the state. The final model was expressed as a raster surface. The predictive ability of the model assessed by comparing, for each cell of the raster surface, the computed model risk scores with a binary variable representing the presence or absence of an FMD outbreak in that cell during the period 1985 to 2015. Current FMD surveillance performance was assessed, and recommendations were made to improve surveillance activities in critical areas.
Highlights
Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease which affects all clovenhoofed animals
An analysis of the Official Veterinary Service (OVS) records identified that bovine, ovine and swine were the species involved in FMD outbreaks in Rio Grande do Sul (RS)
The multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has already been employed in other countries [21, 30] and in Brazil [31] to help target animal surveillance and identify risk areas
Summary
Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease which affects all clovenhoofed animals. Identification of FMD risk areas the disease is endemic. In countries that have been previously free of FMD, new outbreaks result in large financial losses due to the decrease of export markets [2]. Up until the 1990s outbreaks of FMD were common in many countries of South America [3]. The progresses and challenges in South America’s FMD program have been discussed at great length in these seminars [5]. The economic consequences involved in stopping cattle vaccination and how animal products from disease-free zones without FMD vaccination may access new markets should be analyzed owing to its significant impact on the livestock industry for South American countries and other nations [6]. In the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), which is the region encompassed in this study, there is an overview of the FMD history displayed in Fig 1 [7, 8]
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