Assessment of the cost effectiveness of compulsory testing of introduced animals and bulk tank milk testing for bovine viral diarrhea in Japan

ISODA, Norikazu; ASANO, Akihiro; ICHIJO, Michiru; OHNO, Hiroshi; SATO, Kazuhiko; OKAMOTO, Hirokazu; NAKAO, Shigeru; KATO, Hajime; SAITO, Kazuma; ITO, Naoki; USUI, Akira; TAKAYAMA, Hiroaki; SAKODA, Yoshihiro

Since BVD is mainly a chronic disease that causes economic losses, including decreased milk production and growth, and respiratory disorders [14, 15, 24, 41] , the risk of BVD is not apparent to farmers. Thus, the benefit of control or eradication programs for BVD should be made clear to them to obtain consent for the implementation of strategies such as mass vaccination and biosecurity measures at the regional level. However, because effectiveness of the control measure would require several years to materialize in most cases, maintaining high motivation to sustain the measures is often challenging. In other words, control measures should be implemented with the cooperation of all stakeholders and evaluated prior to commencement as well as during adoption of appropriate program change in response to unexpected occurrences or with respect to the balance between effectiveness and expenditure. Although we focused on the cost of voluntary control measures, compulsory testing of introduced animals, and mass screening of BTM, another study calculated the net production losses due to BVDV infection and control expenditures [37] . It should be beneficial to spend control expenditures in a short period if the objective is to reduce net production losses [29] . Thus, an eradication program may not be highly cost effective when it is launched; however, once a disease-free status is achieved, the longer the status is maintained, the more cost effective the program becomes [42] . Cost-effective analysis of net production losses and general hygiene management in Japanese dairy farms should be performed to develop appropriate voluntary BVD control measures in epidemiologically different areas.