Economic aspects of Q fever control in dairy goats

This paper presents an economic analysis of Q fever control strategies in dairy goat herds in The Netherlands. Evaluated control strategies involved vaccination strategies (being either preventive or reactive) and reactive non-vaccination strategies (i.e., culling or breeding prohibition). Reactive strategies were initiated after PCR positive bulk tank milk or after an abortion storm (abortion percentage in the herd of 5% or more). Preventive vaccination eradicates Q fever in a herd on average within 2 and 7 years (depending on breeding style and vaccination strategy). Economic outcomes reveal that preventive vaccination is always the preferred Q fever control strategy on infected farms and this even holds for a partial analysis if only on-farm costs and benefits are accounted for and human health costs are ignored. Averted human health costs depend to a large extend on the number of infected human cases per infected farm or animal. Much is yet unknown with respect to goat human transmission rates. When the pathogen is absent in both livestock and farm environment then the freedom of Q fever disease is achieved. This would enable a return to non-vaccinated herds but more insight is required with respect to the mechanisms and probability of re-infection. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.