Stochastic simulations of a multi-group compartmental model for Johne's disease on US dairy herds with test-based culling intervention

Mathematical Modeling of the Transmission and Control of Foodborne Pathogens and Antimicrobial Resistance at Preharvest

“…If farmers want to cull only high shedding animals, faster MAP detection tests with high sensitivity, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, are needed. To investigate the impact of testbased culling on the extinction of MAP infection, a multigroup (including calves, heifers, and cows) stochastic model was developed by Lu et al (2010). The stochastic model showed that (1) the probability of fadeout of MAP infection generally increased over time with test-based culling of infectious cows using fecal culture test, (2) the within herd prevalence had a large variance, and (3) the effective control of MAP transmission should combine both test-based culling and improved calf management (aiming to reduce the contact between susceptible calves and shedding animals).…”

Back to the real world: Connecting models with data

“…Mathematical models for JD in dairy cattle have been developed to understand MAP transmission dynamics and to predict the effectiveness of recommended control programs (Kudahl et al, 2007;Lu et al, 2008Lu et al, , 2010Mitchell et al, 2008;Marce et al, 2010). Mathematical models have the advantage of being able to study infectious dynamics under a wide range of scenarios, without necessarily having to obtain perfect data for all these scenarios.…”

Farm animal health : progress, problems and perspectives

“…With increasing herd size a larger effort per animal is required to maintain the same health status (Figure 11). Larger herds are not per se more likely to become infected, but once infectious diseases are present, larger herds will need to spend more effort for a longer period of time to have the same impact on infection control compared to smaller farms (Lu et al 2010). …”