Originally from: mona parr
                        
Defra today announced that a contract has been awarded to Risk Solution Ltd to carry out a Cost Benefit Analysis on FMD Control Strategies.

The year long epidemiological and economic study will help to provide enhanced information on the costs of eradicating FMD taking into account different disease control policies. It will take into account the economic consequences, not just to farmers, but also on wider rural communities, such as damage to tourism, disruption of countryside pursuits, and footpath closures.

It meets the recommendations of the Lessons Learned Inquiry into the 2001 FMD outbreak, which suggested that a CBA update was overdue and that "cost benefit analyses of FMD control strategies should be updated and maintained" in the UK.

The CBA will be based on a number of scenarios which will look at four main control options, including the use of vaccination. It will also take into account different regional and agricultural regions across Great Britain, stock densities, mixes of species and outbreaks of different sizes.

Animal Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: "The CBA will help inform decisions on which disease control option to use in which circumstances. It will also help plan resources for an outbreak; refine the Decision Tree; build consensus on when to use emergency vaccination and more generally improve the evidence on the costs of different disease control policies."

Notes for editors

1 The "Lessons to be Learned" Inquiry into the 2001 FMD outbreak commented that there had not been a "full scale updating" of the cost-benefit analysis following the 1967 FMD outbreak. The Inquiry suggested that such an update was overdue and recommended (LL R52) that "cost benefit analyses of FMD control strategies should be updated and maintained. These should be undertaken at both UK and EU level." In its published response to the Inquiries, the Government accepted the recommendation and agreed to undertake such a CBA for the UK.

2 The Royal Society Inquiry considered the issue of prophylactic vaccination against FMD in its Report. "Infectious Diseases in Livestock," published in July 2002. It recognised that routine vaccination against some of the OIE list A diseases is possible but concluded that, at present, the considerable technical problems and the trade implications argued against changing current arrangements. Prophylactic vaccination is prohibited under the terms of the EU FMD Directive. The CBA therefore does not cover this option.

3 The CBA, which went out to competitive tender, will be undertaken in conjunction with all four UK Rural Affairs Departments.