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

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 diseas

SUBMITTER: Guinat C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4928095 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature