Economic Impact of Alternative FMD Emergency Vaccination Strategies in the Midwestern United States

An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the United States would likely result in major costs to producers, consumers, and government. How animal health officials manage such an outbreak has substantial impact on probable losses. Without an emergency FMD vaccination strategy, producer and consumer losses of an FMD outbreak in the midwestern United States would likely approach $188 billion, and government costs would likely exceed $11 billion. In contrast, a high-capacity emergency vaccination program together with a large vaccination zone would reduce median consumer and producer losses to approximately $56 billion and government costs to a little more than $1 billion.