Abstract

Bluetongue virus serotype 8 (BTV8) unexpectedly arrived in Northern Europe in the summer of 2006. Just over 2000 holdings were affected in the first year, with Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany worst affected, but with cases also reported in Northern France and Luxembourg. In the first year the extent of the spread seemed limited to three main spatio-temporal foci, Maastricht, Gent and Koln. In 2007, the epidemic exploded, and the virus spread widely across Northern Europe reaching the coast of Great Britain (GB) in September. The spread of BTV8 has been limited in GB so far (with 127 infected premises reported in early April), but, as happened on the continent, the virus is likely to overwinter and a major outbreak is possible for 2008. We have developed two models to predict BTV transmission in GB. The first is a stochastic model which simulates the dynamics of BTV within a farm (Gubbins et al. 2008). This model is then coupled with a between-farm transmission model. The between-farm transmission model is stochastic and spatially explicit, based on single point locations of the farms, and was parameterised on the 2006 outbreak data from Northern Europe. The resulting model, which incorporates within-farm dynamics (Gubbins et al. 2008) and between-farms dynamics, is being used to predict the future spatio-temporal spread of BTV across Great Britain and to investigate the effects of vaccination strategies to control spread.

Gubbins, S., S. Carpenter, et al. (2008). “Assessing the risk of bluetongue to UK livestock: uncertainty and sensitivity analyses of a temperature-dependent model for the basic reproduction number.” J R Soc Interface 5(20): 363-71.