The economic benefits of targeted response strategies against foot-and-mouth disease in Australia.

Recent developments in control of highly infectious diseases attempt to improve emergency response efforts by more clearly focusing or targeting response tools according to risk. For example, advances in surveillance testing and sampling deliver their results by more accurately and precisely targeting the population of interest. In this work, targeted implementation of trading zones and vaccination were examined for simulated outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Australia.

A Simulation Study of the Use of Vaccination to Control Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreaks Across Australia.

This study examines the potential for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) control strategies that incorporate vaccination to manage FMD spread for a range of incursion scenarios across Australia. Stakeholder consultation was used to formulate control strategies and incursion scenarios to ensure relevance to the diverse range of Australian livestock production regions and management systems. The Australian Animal Disease Spread model (AADIS) was used to compare nine control strategies for 13 incursion scenarios, including seven control strategies incorporating vaccination.

A comparison of fragmenting lead-based and lead-free bullets for aerial shooting of wild pigs.

In response to the health threats posed by toxic lead to humans, scavenging wildlife and the environment, there is currently a focus on transitioning from lead-based to lead-free bullets for shooting of wild animals. We compared efficiency metrics and terminal ballistic performance for lead-based and lead-free (non-lead) bullets for aerial shooting of wild pigs (Sus scrofa) in eastern Australia. Ballistic testing revealed that lead-based and lead-free bullets achieved similar performance in precision and muzzle kinetic energy (E0) levels (3337.

Risk factors for emergence of exotic foot-and-mouth disease O/ME-SA/Ind-2001d on smallholder farms in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a significant endemic transboundary animal disease in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and throughout the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The disease has been shown to perpetuate the cycle of smallholder poverty through reduced animal production, plus limitations on market access for trading in livestock and their products. Despite significant national and multilateral efforts to control FMD over the past two decades, endemic FMD viruses (FMDVs) continue to circulate in Lao PDR.