Veterinary Epidemiology and Zoonosis

OPTIMUM CONTROL STRATEGIES

• The basic economic model of a production function is to illustrate the implications of disease and its control for technical and economic efficiency.
• A related approach is to explore the general relationship between control expenditures and output losses.
• An example of identifying an optimum control strategy: Bovine sub-clinical mastitis
• Bovine mastitis is considered to be the most important disease affecting dairy cattle.
• Cost of control measures include,
  • Teat dip and spraying
  • Dry cow therapy
  • Annual testing of milking machines
• The losses due to sub-clinical mastitis include,
  • Decreased milk yield
  • Changed milk consumption
  • Decreased milk quality
  • Accelerated replacement of diary cows