Body condition scores (BCS) are very useful for dairy herd management and breeding programs, but the consistency and quality of recordings made by consultants in the field are unknown. The objectives of this study were 1) to estimate the agreement in BCS within and among practicing dairy veterinarians and 2) to provide an indication of the effects of training and the value of calibration, and of what efforts need to be made to obtain a validity and precision in BCS adequate for management purposes. A total of 2,230 scores were recorded by 51 practicing dairy veterinarians and 6 highly trained instructors. The 6 instructors were cross-trained to validate calibration consistency in assigning BCS. Each individual scored approximately 20 cows twice, with the second scoring occurring approximately 2.5 h after the first. Between the 2 recordings, the respective instructors conducted a training session for the practicing veterinarians using other cows. A weighted kappa coefficient was used to assess agreement among and within classifiers. Excellent agreement (kappa > or = 0.86) was documented between repeated BCS recorded for the same cows by the highly trained instructors. In addition, the BCS provided by multiple classifiers from the instructor team appeared to be comparable across herds and classifiers. This legitimizes the use of BCS for benchmarking at both the cow and the herd level. The within-classifier and between-classifier kappa values were in the ranges of 0.22 to 0.75 and 0.17 to 0.78, respectively, in the group of practicing dairy veterinarians. Many of the veterinarians provided estimates of average BCS that differed considerably from the BCS recorded by the instructors. Between-classifier comparisons of herd BCS are not warranted unless a validation has been performed. If scores are collected by multiple classifiers with varying experience, a valid but imprecise estimate of the true population mean of BCS may be obtained if classifiers are inexperienced. The limited training effort used in this study seemed to have brought about substantial improvement in the validity and precision of the BCS determined by practicing veterinarians, compared with the BCS recorded on the same cows by highly trained classifiers.

Many developing countries face significant health burdens associated with a high incidence of endemic zoonoses and difficulties in integrated control measures for both the human and animal populations. The objective of this study was to develop and apply a multicriteria ranking model for zoonoses in Mongolia, a country highly affected by zoonotic disease, to inform optimal resource allocation at the national level. Diseases were evaluated based on their impact on human health, livestock sector health and the wider society through affects on the economic value of livestock, as well as the feasibility of control in both the human and livestock population. Data on disease in Mongolia were collected from various government departments including the Mongolian State Central Laboratory, the Mongolian Department of Veterinary and Animal Breeding, the Mongolian Ministry of Health, Mongolian National Center for Communicable Diseases, the National Center for Zoonotic Disease and expert opinion from a workshop with a number of Mongolian Government officials and researchers. A combined score for both impact of the disease and feasibility of its control was calculated. Five zoonotic diseases were determined to be of high priority from this assessment (i.e. ovine brucellosis, echinococcosis (hydatids), rabies, anthrax and bovine brucellosis). The results supported some of the findings for high-priority diseases (namely brucellosis, rabies and anthrax) from a previous priority setting exercise carried out in Mongolia in 2011, but also identified and ranked additional animal diseases of public health importance. While the process of model development was largely Mongolian specific, the experience of developing and parameterizing this multicriteria ranking model could be replicated by other countries where zoonoses have substantive impacts on both animal and human health.

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is endemic in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) and it causes economic loss to smallholder husbandry systems. An intervention programme based on a risk‐based partial vaccination strategy was implemented in three provinces of Lao PDR (Champasak, Savannakhet and Xiangkhouang) to immunise domestic cattle and buffalo during 2016–2020. Two cross‐sectional surveys were conducted in 2016/17 and 2020 to evaluate the impact of the vaccination programme on the prevalence of FMD virus exposure and clinical incidence of the disease. A total of 212 villages were visited during the two surveys, collecting 1609 household‐level questionnaire results and 5931 blood samples of domestic cattle and buffalo. Blood samples were tested for the presence of antibodies to the non‐structural proteins of FMD virus, and seroprevalence of 42.5 and 47.5% in 2016/17 and 2020, respectively were found. Multivariable regression analysis indicated that the efficacy of the FMD vaccination programme for reducing FMD virus circulation varied by province. In general, the incidence of clinical FMD increased toward the end of the 5‐year intervention period, coinciding with a reduction of vaccine coverage in the last 2 years of the period. The findings suggest that the risk‐based vaccination strategy achieved a marginally protective effect against the circulation of FMD virus with the possible limiting factors being operational constraints of public veterinary services, lack of farmers’ compliance and unsustainable funding. We conclude that consistent resource availability and higher vaccination coverage is required to successfully control FMD with a risk‐based vaccination strategy in Lao PDR.

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