African swine fever (ASF) and classical swine fever (CSF) are two major transboundary animal diseases of swine with important socioeconomic consequences at farm, subnational and national level.

Starting in May 2014 an emerging Bluetongue (BT) serotype 4 (BTV-4) epizooty has affected the ruminant population of eleven countries from the Balkan Peninsula. Consequently, the veterinary services implemented various bio-security measures and a considerable discussion has been raised if future BTV surveillance and preventive measures should be taken in risk based zones and periods. Therefore, the objective of this work was to describe the spatial and temporal characteristics of the BTV-4 epizooty in the Balkan Peninsula from May 2014 to February 2015. We used the space-time permutation model of the scan statistic to identify the space-time disease clusters. The scan statistic was parameterized to a maximum temporal length of 150 days (duration of the epizooty in the Balkans in 2014) and a radius of 100 km as a maximum spatial cluster size (protection zone for BT). Results were significant (p < 0.05) to the maximum spatial size defined for the clusters. From the 6295 BT outbreaks the scan statistics identified 33 disease clusters in nine Balkan countries. The highest number of outbreaks occurred from September to November 2014.The earliest cluster was detected in Greece in July 2014 with a radius of 56 km. The latest cluster was detected in Croatia in February 2015 with a radius of 99,8 km. These results are a first description of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the 2014-February 2015 BT epizooty in the Balkans.

Globalization of trade, and the interconnectivity of animal production systems, continues to challenge efforts to control disease. A better understanding of trade networks supports development of more effective strategies for mitigation for transboundary diseases like African swine fever (ASF), classical swine fever (CSF), and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). North Macedonia, bordered to the north and east by countries with ongoing ASF outbreaks, recently reported its first incursion of ASF. This study aimed to describe the distribution of pigs and pig farms in North Macedonia, and to characterize the live pig movement network. Network analyses on movement data from 2017 to 2019 were performed for each year separately, and consistently described weakly connected components with a few primary hubs that most nodes shipped to. In 2019, the network demonstrated a marked decrease in betweenness and increase in communities. Most shipments occurred within 50 km, with movements &lt;6 km being the most common (22.5%). Nodes with the highest indegree and outdegree were consistent across years, despite a large turnover among smallholder farms. Movements to slaughterhouses predominated (85.6%), with movements between farms (5.4%) and movements to market (5.8%) playing a lesser role. This description of North Macedonia's live pig movement network should enable implementation of more efficient and cost-effective mitigation efforts strategies in country, and inform targeted educational outreach, and provide data for future disease modeling, in the region.