Predictive modelling and risk assessment of BSE: a review

Autor: Shane Ward, D. John Fry, Kevin McDonnell, Enda Cummins, Patrick M. Grace
Rok vydání: 2001
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Risk Research. 4:251-274
ISSN: 1466-4461
1366-9877
DOI: 10.1080/13669870152023809
Popis: Predictive models have been used to monitor and analyse the future course of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and provide estimates of biological parameters to assess the risks to both animal and human health. Risk assessment models have illustrated that oral transmission is the primary cause of BSE (90% of cases) and have shown that horizontal transmission of infection may be responsible for the persistence and clustering of the disease. Best-fit risk assessment models have shown that maternal transmission occurs at a rate of 9.6% with 95% confidence limits of 5.1–14.2. There is an age-dependent susceptibility to infection. Risk models have estimated that bovine susceptibility to BSE, and hence risk of infection, peaks at 1.31 years of age and rapidly decreases in subsequent years. An animal's infectiousness (and hence risk to cause disease) is mainly confined to the end of the incubation period with a peak when clinical signs appear. BSE models have shown that the optimal culling policy to minimiz...
Databáze: OpenAIRE