Quantitative impacts of incubation phase transmission of foot-and-mouth disease virus

Concepts in Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics in Populations

Veterinarians are better prepared to assist producers in disease prevention, control, and eradication when they understand the relationships among the agent, the host, and the environment. Although vaccination may reduce disease prevalence in a herd, test and selective removal remain the most common method of disease control.

Modeling foot-and-mouth disease dissemination in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and evaluating the effectiveness of control measures

Introduction

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects multiple food-animal species and spreads rapidly among ungulate populations, posing significant challenges for disease control. Understanding the dynamics of FMD transmission and evaluating the effectiveness of control measures are critical for mitigating its impact. This study introduces a multiscale compartmental stochastic model to simulate FMD spread and assess countermeasures.

Methods

We developed a model that integrates population dynamics, including births, deaths, and species-specific transmission dynamics, at both the between-farm and within-farm levels. Four scenarios were created to evaluate different control strategies: the base scenario included vaccinating 20 farms and depopulating four infected farms, while alternative scenarios increased vaccination and depopulation capacities or omitted vaccination altogether.

Results

Our simulations showed that bovines were the most frequently infected species, followed by swine and small ruminants. After 10 days of initial spread, the number of infected farms ranged from 1 to 123, with 90.12% of simulations resulting in fewer than 50 infected farms. Most secondary spread occurred within a 25 km radius. An early response to control actions significantly reduced the time spent managing outbreaks, and increasing daily depopulation and vaccination capacities further enhanced control efforts.

Discussion

Emergency vaccination effectively reduced the magnitude and duration of outbreaks, while increasing depopulation without vaccination also eliminated outbreaks. These findings highlight the importance of rapid response and capacity scaling in controlling FMD outbreaks, providing valuable insights for future decision-making processes in disease management.

Duration of Contagion of Foot-And-Mouth Disease Virus in Infected Live Pigs and Carcasses

Data-driven modeling of incursions of high-consequence, transboundary pathogens of animals is a critical component of veterinary preparedness. However, simplifying assumptions and excessive use of proxy measures to compensate for gaps in available data may compromise modeled outcomes. The current investigation was prospectively designed to address two major gaps in current knowledge of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) pathogenesis in pigs: the end (duration) of the infectious period and the viability of FMDV in decaying carcasses. By serial exposure of sentinel groups of pigs to the same group of donor pigs infected by FMDV A24 Cruzeiro, it was demonstrated that infected pigs transmitted disease at 10 days post infection (dpi), but not at 15 dpi. Assuming a latent period of 1 day, this would result in a conservative estimate of an infectious duration of 9 days, which is considerably longer than suggested by a previous report from an experiment performed in cattle. Airborne contagion was diminished within two days of removal of infected pigs from isolation rooms. FMDV in muscle was inactivated within 7 days in carcasses stored at 4^oC. By contrast, FMDV infectivity in vesicle epithelium harvested from intact carcasses stored under similar conditions remained remarkably high until the study termination at 11 weeks post mortem. The output from this study consists of experimentally determined data on contagion associated with FMDV-infected pigs. This information may be utilized to update parameterization of models used for foot-and-mouth disease outbreak simulations involving areas of substantial pig production.

The Carrier Conundrum; A Review of Recent Advances and Persistent Gaps Regarding the Carrier State of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus

The existence of a prolonged, subclinical phase of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) infection in cattle was first recognized in the 1950s. Since then, the FMDV carrier state has been a subject of controversy amongst scientists and policymakers. A fundamental conundrum remains in the discordance between the detection of infectious FMDV in carriers and the apparent lack of contagiousness to in-contact animals. Although substantial progress has been made in elucidating the causal mechanisms of persistent FMDV infection, there are still critical knowledge gaps that need to be addressed in order to elucidate, predict, prevent, and model the risks associated with the carrier state. This is further complicated by the occurrence of a distinct form of neoteric subclinical infection, which is indistinguishable from the carrier state in field scenarios, but may have substantially different epidemiological properties. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge of the FMDV carrier state and identifies specific areas of research in need of further attention. Findings from experimental investigations of FMDV pathogenesis are discussed in relation to experience gained from field studies of foot-and-mouth disease.

Modeling the Transmission of Foot and Mouth Disease to Inform Transportation of Infected Carcasses to a Disposal Site During an Outbreak Event

In the event of a Food and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in the United States, an infected livestock premises is likely to result in a high number of carcasses (swine and/or cattle) as a result of depopulation. If relocating infected carcasses to an off-site disposal site is allowed, the virus may have increased opportunity to spread to uninfected premises and result in exposure of susceptible livestock. A stochastic within-herd disease spread model was used to predict the time to detect the disease by observation of clinical signs within the herd, and the number of animals in different disease stages over time. Expert opinion was elicited to estimate depopulation parameters in various scenarios. Disease detection was assumed when 5% of the population showed clinical signs by direct observation. Time to detection (5 and 95th percentile values) was estimated for all swine farm sizes (500-10,000 head) ranged from 102 to 282 h, from 42 to 216 h for all dairy cattle premises sizes (100-2,000 head) and from 66 to 240 h for all beef cattle premises sizes (5,000-50,000 head). Total time from infection to beginning depopulation (including disease detection and confirmation) for the first FMD infected case was estimated between 8.5-14.3 days for swine, 6-12.8 days for dairy or beef cattle premises. Total time estimated for subsequent FMD cases was between 6.8-12.3 days for swine, 4.3-10.8 days for dairy and 4.5-10.5 days for beef cattle premises. On an average sized operation, a sizable proportion of animals in the herd (34-56% of swine, 48-60% of dairy cattle, and 47-60% of beef cattle for the first case and 49-60% of swine, 55-60% of dairy cattle, 56-59% of beef cattle for subsequent cases) would be viremic at the time of beginning depopulation. A very small fraction of body fluids from the carcasses (i.e., 1 mL) would contain virus that greatly exceeds the minimum infectious dose by oral (4-7x) or inhalation (7-13x) route for pigs and cattle.