Economic evaluation of animal disease control strategies: Application of a relational database system

Abstract

The outbreak of an animal disease such as swine fever can have far-reaching economic consequences which affect not only livestock owners but also upstream and downstream industries and other stakeholders (such as veterinary agencies). Swine fever is the animal disease with the most significant economic impact in the area of pig production worldwide. Until now it was almost impossible to calculate the macroeconomic impact of a swine fever outbreak in European countries such as Germany. This paper uses the relational database management system TEUS to economically asses an animal disease outbreak by addressing the assumptions underlying the calculation. Five cost categories are proposed using parameters which influence the costs of an outbreak. Furthermore, important basics of TEUS like the entity-relationship (ER)-model or the respective algorithms of the programmed system are depicted. The programmed relational database system TEUS can generate and calculate different scenarios, by varying parameters and thereby generating a decision space. Furthermore, TEUS can also be used to analyse economic aspects of other animal diseases or the outbreak of a disease in other countries.