Mansley L M, Donaldson A I, Thrusfield M V, Honhold N
Animal Health Divisional Office, Strathearn House, Broxden Business Park, Lamberkine Drive, Perth, PH1 1RX, UK.
Rev Sci Tech. 2011 Aug;30(2):483-98. doi: 10.20506/rst.30.2.2054.
The 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic in Great Britain was characterised by control using both traditional and novel methods, some resulting from conclusions of mathematical models. Seven days before the implementation of the novel controversial automatic pre-emptive culling of all susceptible livestock on premises adjacent to infected premises (the 'contiguous cull'), the spread of infection had already been controlled by a combination of the traditional stamping out policy with a national movement ban on livestock. A second controversial novel policy requiring the slaughter of sheep within 3 km of premises on which disease had been confirmed (the 3-km cull) also commenced after the peak of infection spread, was untargeted and took several weeks to complete; serosurveillance of culled sheep detected infection in only one flock, suggesting that cryptic infection of sheep was not propagating the epidemic. Extensive post-epidemic serological surveillance of sheep found only a small number of seropositive animals in a very few flocks, suggesting that foot and mouth disease may self-limit in extensive sheep populations. The epidemic was finally brought to an end following the introduction of enhanced agricultural movement restrictions and biosecurity measures. A welfare culling scheme of unaffected animals was required to support the prolonged national livestock movement ban. The models that supported the contiguous culling policy were severely flawed, being based on data from dissimilar epidemics; used inaccurate background population data, and contained highly improbable biological assumptions about the temporal and quantitative parameters of infection and virus emission in infected herds and flocks.
2001年英国口蹄疫疫情的特点是采用了传统和新型方法进行防控，其中一些方法源自数学模型的结论。在实施颇具争议的新型自动先发制扑杀感染场所周边所有易感牲畜（即“毗邻扑杀”）政策的七天前，感染传播就已通过传统的扑杀政策与全国性牲畜移动禁令相结合的方式得到了控制。另一项颇具争议的新型政策是要求扑杀确诊疾病场所周边3公里范围内的绵羊（即“3公里扑杀”），该政策也是在感染传播高峰期过后开始实施的，缺乏针对性，耗时数周才完成；对扑杀绵羊的血清学监测仅在一个羊群中检测到感染，这表明绵羊的隐性感染并未传播疫情。疫情后对绵羊进行的广泛血清学监测发现，只有极少数羊群中有少量血清阳性动物，这表明口蹄疫在广大绵羊群体中可能会自行得到控制。随着加强农业移动限制和生物安全措施的出台，疫情最终得以结束。需要一项对未受影响动物的福利扑杀计划来支持延长的全国性牲畜移动禁令。支持毗邻扑杀政策的模型存在严重缺陷，其依据是来自不同疫情的数据；使用了不准确的背景种群数据，并且包含了关于感染畜群和禽群中感染和病毒排放的时间和定量参数的极不可能的生物学假设。
