Digital Dermatitis - The Costs and Benefits of the Control

Dermatitis digitalis is a significant or in some herds major health and production problem. Costs to farmers have not yet been fully quantified. Therefore it is necessary to demonstrate to veterinarians and farmers the costs and benefits of disease control. This paper try to presents first attempts to qualify the costs and benefits of dermatitis digitalis control on dairy farms through the use of an interactive modelling approach with well known parameters such risk factors, prophylaxis measures and therapeutic approaches. Although literature search revealed no specific epidemiological models for dermatitis digitalis except in some tries in the UK literature, modelling approach was dictated by data available.
Conceptual model for dermatitis digitalis was produced and equations and algorithms are than inserted to instruct model how to ...