Economics Analysis of Mitigation Strategies for FMD Introduction in Highly Concentrated Animal Feeding Regions

In this article, we present a linked epidemiologic‐economic modeling framework that is used to investigate several foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) mitigation strategies under the context of an FMD outbreak in a concentrated cattle‐feeding region in the United States. We extend the literature by investigating the economic effectiveness of some previously unaddressed strategies. These include early detection, enhanced vaccine availability, and enhanced surveillance under various combinations of slaughter, surveillance, and vaccination. We also consider disease introduction points at a large feedlot, a backgrounder feedlot, a large grazing herd, and a backyard herd all in the Texas High Plains. To examine the economic implications of these strategies, we use a two‐component stochastic framework. The first component is the epidemiologic model that simulates the spread of FMD as affected by control policies and introduction scenarios. The second component is an economic module, which calculates cattle industry losses and costs of disease control strategy implementation, and processes the results in a stochastic framework. The results show that early detection of the disease is the most effective mechanism for minimizing the costs of outbreak. Under some circumstances, enhanced surveillance also proved an effective strategy.