Assessing the effectiveness of environmental sampling for surveillance of foot-and-mouth disease virus in a cattle herd

The survival of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) in the environment provides an opportunity for indirect transmission, both within and between farms. However it also presents the possibility of surveillance and detection via environmental sampling. This study assesses the effectiveness of environmental sampling strategies in the event of an outbreak, using a previous model for transmission of FMDV in a cattle herd that had been parameterized using data from transmission experiments and outbreaks. We show that environmental sampling can be an effective means of detecting FMDV in a herd, but it requires multiple samples to be taken on multiple occasions. In addition, environmental sampling can potentially detect FMDV in a herd more quickly than clinical inspection. For example, taking 10 samples every 3 days results in a mean time to detection of 6 days, which is lower than the mean time to detection estimated for the 2001 UK epidemic (8 days). We also show how environmental sampling could be used in a herd considered to be at risk as an alternative to pre-emptive culling. However, because of the time taken for virus to accumulate at the start of an outbreak, a reasonable level of confidence (> 99%) that an at-risk herd is indeed free from infection is unlikely to be achieved in less than 1 week.