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Prevention and control of animal diseases worldwide
Part I: Economic analysis: prevention versus outbreak costs
3. Scope
3.1. Disease focus: TADs
The focus of this project has been on Transboundary Animal Diseases (TADs), particularly of high
zoonotic potential. Transboundary animal diseases are defined as those that are of significant economic,
trade and/or food security importance for a considerable number of countries, which can easily spread to
other countries and reach epidemic proportions and where control/management, including exclusion,
requires co-operation between several countries.
The occurrence of such diseases and their control and eradication poses significant challenges for the
world’s Veterinary Services (VS) 3 and entails substantial socio-economic costs, especially in the context
of developing countries’ poverty alleviation and development objectives. In addition, many of these
diseases have high public health relevance and have become virtually endemic in many parts of the
developing world, as demonstrated in Annex 1.
Amongst TADs, the project has focused in particular on two diseases of potentially high socio-economic
impact, which today present some of the most significant challenges for VS world wide:
• Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI): The start of the current ‘H5N1’ subtype of HPAI
epizootic occurred at the end of 2003 in parts of SE Asia 4 . By the end of 2005, the disease had
spread to parts of Central Asia, Siberia, the Balkans, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, while at
the beginning of 2006 it spread to parts of Western Europe and Africa. The latest situation of the
HPAI occurrence since 2003 (number of outbreaks and geographical occurrence) is shown in
Annex 2 (source: OIE WAHID). According to the OIE (A279), the rate and pattern of the spread
suggests that the reaction of the international community has not been timely enough. This disease
has high public health relevance and significant socio-economic implications.
• Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD): Although of limited public health importance as such, FMD
has had extensive socio-economic impacts 5 wherever it has occurred (whether in the developed or
in the developing world), while its control and eradication has attracted significant efforts and
3 This term encompasses the full range of public and private components of national, regional and
international veterinary systems. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Terrestrial Animal Health
Code defines the Veterinary Services (VS) of a country or group of countries as ‘the national Veterinary
Administration, the Veterinary Authorities and all persons authorised, registered or licensed by the
Veterinary Statutory Body’, and both the public and private components of national mechanisms for the
control and prevention of animal diseases (Terrestrial Code 16th edition, OIE, 2007).
4 The HPAI virus has been present in China since at least 1996 and probably disseminated to Southeast Asian
countries at least some months before it developed into the epidemic beginning in 2003.
5 FMD was chosen amongst a range of diseases that affect the poor in developing countries. The impact of FMD is
exerted mainly through its implications on trade and market access (see for example A129).
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