When resolution does matter: Modelling indirect contacts in dairy farms at different levels of detail.

ABSTRACT: Animal exchanges are considered the major pathway for between-farm transmission of many livestock infectious diseases. Yet, vehicles and operators visiting several farms during routine activities can also contribute to disease spread. Indeed, if contaminated, they can act as mechanical vectors of fomites, generating indirect contacts between visited farms. While data on animal exchanges is often available in national databases, information about the daily itineraries of trucks and operators is rare because difficult to obtain. Thus, some unavoidable approximations have been frequently introduced in the description of indirect contacts in epidemic models. Here, we showed that the level of detail in such description can significantly affect the predictions on disease dynamics. Our analyses f

SUBMITTER: Bernini A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6797332 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature