Wildlife vaccination strategies for eliminating bovine tuberculosis in white-tailed deer populations

by Aakash Pandey, Abigail B. Feuka, Melinda Cosgrove, Megan Moriarty, Anthony Duffiney, Kurt C. VerCauteren, Henry Campa III, Kim M. Pepin Many pathogens of humans and livestock also infect wildlife that can act as a reservoir and challenge disease control or elimination. Efficient and effective prioritization of research and management actions requires an understanding of the potential for new tools to improve elimination probability with feasible deployment strategies that can be implemented at scale. Wildlife vaccination is gaining interest as a tool for managing several wildlife diseases. To evaluate the effect of vaccinating white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), in combination with harvest, in reducing and eliminating bovine tuberculosis from deer populations in Michigan, we developed a mechanistic age-structured disease transmission model for bovine tuberculosis with integrated disease management. We evaluated the impact of pulse vaccination across a range of vaccine properties. Pulse vaccination was effective for reducing disease prevalence rapidly with even low (30%) to moderate (60%) vaccine coverage of the susceptible and exposed deer population and was further improved when combined with increased harvest. The impact of increased harvest depended on the relative strength of transmission modes, i.e., direct vs indirect transmission. Vaccine coverage and efficacy were the most important vaccine properties for reducing and eliminating disease from the local pop...
Source: PLoS Computational Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: research