The effect of temperature, farm density and foot-and-mouth disease restrictions on the 2007 UK bluetongue outbreak

In 2006, bluetongue (BT), a disease of ruminants, was introduced into northern Europe for the first time and more than two thousand farms across five countries were affected. In 2007, BT affected more than 35,000 farms in France and Germany alone. By contrast, the UK outbreak beginning in 2007 was relatively small, with only 135 farms in southeast England affected. We use a model to investigate the effects of three factors on the scale of BT outbreaks in the UK: (1) place of introduction; (2) temperature; and (3) animal movement restrictions. Our results suggest that the UK outbreak could have been much larger had the infection been introduced into the west of England either directly or as a result of the movement of infected animals from southeast England before the first case was detected. The fact that air temperatures in the UK in 2007 were marginally lower than average probably contributed to the UK outbreak being relatively small. Finally, our results indicate that BT movement restrictions are effective at controlling the spread of infection. However, foot-and-mouth disease restrictions in place before the detection and control of BT in 2007 almost certainly helped to limit BT spread prior to its detection.