Foot and mouth disease: the risks of the international trade in live animals.

The growth in world trade has generated significant benefits to humankind, but it has also generated costs. Among these is an increase in the dispersal of pests and pathogens across the globe. International trade has been implicated in outbreaks of several re-occurring livestock diseases. This paper is focused on the risk of foot and mouth disease (FMD) associated with the international trade in live animals. A model was used to estimate FMD risk as a function of the international trade in live animals, controlling for the biosecurity measures undertaken by importing and exporting countries, and for the presence of endemic FMD reservoirs. It was found that the indirect risks associated with exports may be as great as the direct risks associated with imports. For countries where livestock production occurs in disease-free zones (with or without vaccination), the trade risks vary with both species and trading partner. These findings may assist the targeting of disease risk mitigation activities.