A modelling approach to support dynamic decision-making in the control of FMD epidemics.

Most studies on control strategies for contagious diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) evaluate pre-defined control strategies and imply static decision-making during epidemic control. Such a static approach contradicts the dynamic nature of the decision-making process during epidemic control. This paper presents an integrated epidemic-economic modelling approach to support dynamic decision-making in controlling FMD epidemics. This new modelling approach reflects ongoing uncertainty about epidemic growth during epidemic control and provides information required by a dynamic decision process. As demonstrated for a Dutch FMD-case, the modelling approach outperforms static evaluation of pre-fixed control strategies by: (1) providing guidance to decision-making during the entire control process; and (2) generating more realistic estimation of the costs of overreacting or underreacting in choosing control options.