Journal article

Applying Bayesian network modelling to understand the links between on-farm biosecurity practice during the 2007 equine influenza outbreak and horse managers' perceptions of a subsequent outbreak

SM Firestone, FI Lewis, K Schemann, MP Ward, JALML Toribio, MR Taylor, NK Dhand

Preventive Veterinary Medicine | Published : 2014

Abstract

Australia experienced its first ever outbreak of equine influenza in August 2007. Horses on 9359 premises were infected over a period of 5 months before the disease was successfully eradicated through the combination of horse movement controls, on-farm biosecurity and vaccination. In a previous premises-level case-control study of the 2007 equine influenza outbreak in Australia, the protective effect of several variables representing on-farm biosecurity practices were identified. Separately, factors associated with horse managers' perceptions of the effectiveness of biosecurity measures have been identified.In this analysis we applied additive Bayesian network modelling to describe the compl..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases


Funding Acknowledgements

This research was jointly funded by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC), the Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases (ABCRC) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant: IZK0Z3_140188). The authors are grateful for access to the 'edward' high performance computing cluster at the University of Melbourne and systems administrative support, and also for the time and cooperation of the horse premises owners and managers interviewed, the NSW DPI for making the equine influenza dataset available, and the following individuals for contributions to data compilation: Barbara Moloney (NSW DPI), Nina Kung (QLD DPIF), Brendan Cowled (AusVet) and Graeme Garner (DAFF).