The effect of temperature, farm density and foot-and-mouth disease restrictions on the 2007 UK bluetongue outbreak.

ABSTRACT: In 2006, bluetongue (BT), a disease of ruminants, was introduced into northern Europe for the first time and more than two thousand farms across five countries were affected. In 2007, BT affected more than 35,000 farms in France and Germany alone. By contrast, the UK outbreak beginning in 2007 was relatively small, with only 135 farms in southeast England affected. We use a model to investigate the effects of three factors on the scale of BT outbreaks in the UK: (1) place of introduction; (2) temperature; and (3) animal movement restrictions. Our results suggest that the UK outbreak could have been much larger had the infection been introduced into the west of England either directly or as a result of the movement of infected animals from southeast England before the first case was detecte

SUBMITTER: Turner J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6331605 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature