Desarrollo de modelos epidemiológicos cuantitativos para el análisis del riesgo de introducción y difusión potencial de los virus de la fiebre aftosa y de la peste porcina clásica en España
PhD Thesis defense by Beatriz Martínez López at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid
January 29th, 2009
The objectives of this thesis have been, first, to identify areas and periods with increased risk of introduction of Foot-and-Mouth virus (FMDV) and Classical Swine Fever virus (CSFV) in Spain and, second, to characterize their spread once introduced into the country. For that reason, four models have been developed, two for the analysis of the risk of introduction and two others for the evaluation of the potential disease spread.
Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) and Classical Swine Fever (CSF) are, without doubt, the diseases with the greatest impact on the economy of a country. Recent outbreaks of FMD and CSF in Europe, the large volume of imports of risk materials (animals, animal products, fomits, etc.) that are introduced annually in our country, and the enormous Spanish census of susceptible animals, led us to believe that Spain could be at risk of introduction and spread of both viruses. In the case of the CSF, this obvious risk was confirmed with the epidemics in 1997-1998 and 2001-2002, which affected six and three Spanish Autonomous Communities, and the estimated costs to control them were 89.5 and 7.4 million euros, respectively. In the case of the FMDV, few hours prevented the introduction of the virus in Spain during the European epidemic of 2001. At present, there are no risk assessment adapted to the Spanish characteristics to quantify the risk of introduction of the FMDV and CSFV by country of origin, route of entrance and Spanish province of destination. Furthermore, no spread models have been developed to estimate the sanitary and economic consequences of these diseases, and to evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of potential control methods. Undoubtedly, the availability of such models would be a useful tool for the detection of potential critical points in the entrance of both diseases in Spain, and as a support tool in the decision-making process and prioritization of the preventive actions of our veterinarians. These premises have led to the development of risk assessments and spread models for the two diseases that have the greatest economic impact in our country: FMD and CSF
