Impact of Vaccination and Culling on Controlling Foot and Mouth Disease: A Mathematical Modelling Approach

Published Online November 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/wjv)Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a major threat, not only to countries whose economies rely on agricultural exports, but also to industrialized countries that maintain a healthy domestic livestock industry by eliminating major infectious diseases from their livestock populations. In this paper a simple mathematical model is formulated and comprehen- sively analyzed to assess the impact of vaccination and culling on controlling FMD. Overally the study demonstrates that vaccination and culling are essential on controlling FMD if they are all implemented. Furthermore the study illus- trates that culling latently infected (early detection of infected animals) is extremely important on controlling FMD dy- namics