Network analysis of cattle movements in Ecuador

We used cattle movement data in Ecuador for 2017 and 2018 to build two types of cattle networks: a network including all cattle movements accounting for a disease of rapid spread like foot and mouth disease and a network including only the cows accounting for brucellosis, a disease of slow evolution occurring mainly in adult females. Parishes (the smallest geographical units) were considered as nodes and cattle movements between parishes as links. Network indicators calculated at the annual and monthly levels were close for both types of networks. For both networks, the largest strong component at the annual level included > 90% of nodes and the largest weak component included all nodes indicating a very low fragmentation. A percolation analysis indicated that most of the parishes needed to be removed to eliminate the largest strong components. Based on some network characteristics we established that a highly transmissible disease could spread rapidly and that an infection of slower transmission such as brucellosis could spread within local clusters. These features should be taken into account when considering preventing measures in Ecuador in the case of an emerging disease like foot and mouth disease or control measures for an endemic disease like brucellosis.