1. Validation of generic risk assessment tools using a case study of African swine fever
- Author
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Taylor, R., de Vos-de Jong, C.J., Simons, R.R.L., Roberts, H., Hultén, C., de Koeijer, Aline A., Lyytikäinen, T., Napp, S., Boklund, A., Petie, R., Sören, K., Swanenburg, M., Comin, A., Seppä-Lassila, L., and Snary, E.
- Subjects
Epidemiologie, Bioinformatica & Diermodellen ,Life Science ,Epidemiology, Bio-informatics & Animal models - Abstract
Generic risk assessment (RA) tools can be applied to assess the incursion risk of multiple animal diseases, allowing for a rapid response to a variety of newly emerging or re-emerging diseases. To explore the opportunities for cross-validation of generic RA tools, seven tools were used to assess the incursion risk of African swine fever (ASF) for the Netherlands and Finland for the 2017 situation and for two hypothetical scenarios in which ASF cases were reported in wild boar and/or domestic pigs in Germany. The generic tools ranged from qualitative risk assessment tools to stochastic spatial risk models but were all parameterised using the same global databases. The tools had different outputs and endpoints and therefore the cross-validation focused on the relative risks across countries and scenarios. All tools evaluated the risk to the Netherlands to be higher than Finland for the live animal trade pathway. The risk to Finland was the same or higher as the Netherlands for the wild boar pathway, but the tools were inconclusive on the animal products pathway. All tools agreed that the hypothetical presence of ASF in Germany increased the risk for the Netherlands, but not for Finland. The case study illustrated that conclusions on the ASF risk were similar across the generic RA tools, despite differences observed in calculated risks. Hence, it was concluded that the cross-validation contributed to the credibility of their results.
- Published
- 2022