Foot and mouth disease model verification and 'relative validation' through a formal model comparison

Abstract

Researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States collaborated to validate their foot and mouth disease models - AusSpread, InterSpread Plus and the North American Animal Disease Spread Model - in an effort to build confidence in their use as decision-support tools. The final stage of this project involved using the three models to simulate a number of disease outbreak scenarios, with data from the Republic of Ireland. The scenarios included an uncontrolled epidemic, and epidemics managed by combinations of stamping out and vaccination. The predicted numbers of infected premises, the duration of each epidemic, and the size of predicted outbreak areas were compared. Relati..