The economic impacts of endemic diseases and disease control programmes

The authors discuss the evaluation of the economic impacts of endemic livestock diseases, and economic issues in control of these diseases. Particular attention is focused on helminths and on endemic vector-transmitted infections (particularly ticks and tick-borne diseases). Decisions relating to disease control have to be made by government and by the producer. Government requires information on the level of control to adopt, the extent of involvement needed, and how to fund animal health programmes (particularly how to share costs between taxpayers and livestock producers). Individual producers require information as to how much effort to invest in disease control, including information collection effort, and how to design control strategies. Economics can shed light on these issues. However, experience suggests that animal health policies are particularly difficult to evaluate from an economic viewpoint, with complex relationships between animal health, production impacts, market access, and non-production benefits of livestock. While little information is available concerning the cost of helminth diseases, many estimates have been made of the costs of ticks and tick-borne diseases at a regional and national level, sometimes demonstrating that eradication is warranted.