Robust disease control efforts are necessary in a foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak

Kansas State University will receive $192,047 under a two-year Cooperative Agreement from the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to develop a risk evaluation model and decision tool for cattle movement during a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. The project aims to incorporate data from ongoing daily active observational surveillance of herds, as recommended by the Secure Beef Supply Plan, along with daily risk of disease introduction, to quantitatively estimate transmission risk from cattle movements. This will provide regulators and producers with an accessible tool to balance disease control through movement restrictions with business continuity. Key deliverables include a risk model that can be updated with new data and targeted research to fill knowledge gaps. Results will be communicated to state and federal decision-makers through conferences and to veterinary practitioners. If successful, this work under the USDA APHIS' Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA No. 10.025) could help guide policy and on-farm decisions during a future foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Livestock movement controls will be critical to robust disease control, but also impact business continuity. Estimates of movement risk are necessary to balance the requirements of disease transmission control and business continuity. The secure beef supply plan identifies and recommends biosecurity and daily surveillance practices for cattle operations to facilitate disease control efforts while allowing authorized movement to maintain business continuity. However, there is no quantitative estimate of movement transmission risk properly accounting for current and historical herd health observation data and daily risk of herd introduction to support those recommendations. The purpose of this project is to incorporate longitudinal ongoing daily active observational surveillance (AOS) as recommended by secure beef supply (SBS) along with daily FMD introduction risk to develop a risk evaluation model and decision tool to estimate the transmission risk of cattle movements. The results will provide an accessible tool for estimation of the transmission risk accounting for variability in efficacy of AOS, time value of historical herd AOS data, daily risk of introduction and uncertainty in knowledge. This project and the resulting risk evaluation tool will guide movement control policy for state and federal animal health authorities and provide guidance to individual producers in making cattle movement decisions from source farms. Targeted research to fill data gaps and strengthen risk estimates will be identified. The model will allow updates as new data are developed. The model will be applicable to cattle operations across the U.S. The target audience for the tool will be state and federal regulators/decision makers involved in policy decisions and disease control efforts. Additionally, livestock veterinarians advising clients on risk management will directly benefit from this project. We will communicate to state and federal regulators/decision makers through presentations at usaha annual meetings and to practicing veterinarians through the american association of bovine practitioners. Additionally, we will communicate results to a scientific audience and provide documentation to regulators and practitioners through research conference abstracts and presentations and a referred journal publication.