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

In this study, cost effectiveness of optional control measures for BVD, including compulsory testing of introduced animals and BTM testing, were evaluated. The results suggested that the selection of compulsory test animals is critical to increasing cost effectiveness and that BTM testing as a mass screening tool for the entire population is apparently both beneficial and cheap. However, even with a highly effective monitoring scheme, BVD prevalence will not decrease to zero but converge at a very low level. Cost-effective analysis is a powerful tool to develop control measures for chronic animal disease with the consent of stakeholders. More comprehensive cost-effective analysis, in which both expenditure and net production losses are taken into consideration, should prove to be a valuable tool for developing effective animal disease control strategies.