Financial Impacts of Foot-and-Mouth Disease at Village and National Levels in Lao PDR

Although a disease of low mortality, the global impact of foot and mouth disease (FMD) is colossal due to the huge numbers of animals affected. This impact can be separated into two components: (1) direct losses due to reduced production and changes in herd structure; and (2) indirect losses caused by costs of FMD control, poor access to markets and limited use of improved production technologies. This paper estimates that annual impact of FMD in terms of visible production losses and vaccination in endemic regions alone amount to between US$6.5 and 21 billion. In addition, outbreaks in FMD free countries and zones cause losses of >US$1.5 billion a year. FMD impacts are not the same throughout the world: 1. FMD production losses have a big impact on the world's poorest where more people are directly dependent on livestock. FMD reduces herd fertility leading to less efficient herd structures and discourages the use of FMD susceptible, high productivity breeds. Overall the direct losses limit livestock productivity affecting food security. 2. In countries with ongoing control programmes, FMD control and management creates large costs. These control programmes are often difficult to discontinue due to risks of new FMD incursion. 3. The presence, or even threat, of FMD prevents access to lucrative international markets. 4. In FMD free countries outbreaks occur periodically and the costs involved in regaining free status have been enormous. FMD is highly contagious and the actions of one farmer affect the risk of FMD occurring on other holdings; thus sizeable externalities are generated. Control therefore requires coordination within and between countries. These externalities imply that FMD control produces a significant amount of public goods, justifying the need for national and international public investment. Equipping poor countries with the tools needed to control FMD will involve the long term development of state veterinary services that in turn will deliver wider benefits to a nation including the control of other livestock diseases.

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly infectious and economically devastating disease of livestock. Although vaccines, available since the early 1900s, have been instrumental in eradicating FMD from parts of the world, the disease still affects millions of animals around the globe and remains the main sanitary barrier to the commerce of animals and animal products. Currently available inactivated antigen vaccines applied intramuscularly to individual animals, confer serotype and subtype specific protection in 1-2 weeks but fail to induce long-term protective immunity. Among the limitations of this vaccine are potential virus escape from the production facility, short shelf life of formulated product, short duration of immunity and requirement of dozens of antigens to address viral antigenic diversity. Here we review novel vaccine approaches that address some of these limitations. Basic research and the combination of reliable animal inoculation models, reverse genetics and computational biology tools will allow the rational design of safe and effective FMD vaccines. These vaccines should address not only the needs of FMD-free countries but also allow the progressive global control and eradication of this devastating disease.

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) in cattle is usually clinically obvious in the unvaccinated herds of countries in which the disease occurs only occasionally. However, in vaccinated herds and in some breeds indigenous to areas in which FMD is endemic, the disease may circulate undetected.