title: Veterinary epidemiology: vaccination strategies for foot-and-mouth disease.
abstract: When foot-and-mouth disease struck the United Kingdom in 2001, the traditional 'stamping out' policy of 1967-68 was supplemented by the pre-emptive culling of animals in premises contiguous to infected premises. A model proposed by Tildesley et al. indicates that the introduction of vaccination should at least halve the number of premises that would need to be subjected to culling in the event of another outbreak. We contest, however, that the overlapping confidence intervals of the outputs of their model, and the inconsistency of their results compared with those from previous models, call into question the model's value as a decision tool, while adding little to the recognized tenet of ring vaccination.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Foreign Animal Diseases, Winnipeg R3E 3M4, Canada.
authors.forename: Richard P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Kitching
authors.forename: Nicholas M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Michael V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Thrusfield
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D005536:Foot-and-Mouth Disease / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008954:Models, Biological; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D014611:Vaccination / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000662:veterinary*