Effectiveness of emergency vaccination in controlling a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in a previously FMD-free without vaccination country.

Emergency FMD vaccination provides high effectiveness within one week, supporting its use during epidemics.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of emergency foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccination in Uruguay, a previously FMD-free country, implemented alongside movement restrictions and biosecurity measures. Researchers used mathematical modeling within an SIR framework and generalized linear models to estimate vaccine effectiveness (VE) against transmission at one, two, and three weeks post-vaccination using commercial bivalent vaccines containing O1 Campos and A24 Cruzeiro strains. Analysis was stratified by vaccination zones. Results demonstrated that VE increased over time across all zones, with remarkably high effectiveness even within the first week post-vaccination, ranging from 59.75% to 78.50% depending on zone. These findings provide critical evidence that emergency vaccination significantly contributed to epidemic control in a fully susceptible livestock population under high-risk conditions. The study highlights the importance of combining vaccination with complementary control measures and provides valuable VE parameters for parameterizing outbreak-response models in previously FMD-free regions, enhancing preparedness and response strategies.

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