Evaluating the Risk of FMD Introduction into the USA via Imported Beef or Mutton. T. Habtemariam, B. Tameru, D. Nganwa, L. Ayanwale, A. Ahmed, D. Oryang, H. Abdelrahman , R. Fite, and R. McDowell; Tuskegee University and US Department of Agriculture, MD
A probabilistic, quantitative risk assessment was performed to quantify the risk of introducing foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus into the U.S.A. through importation of chilled bone-in/bone-out mutton or chilled deboned beef. A multidisciplinary team of scientists cooperated in conducting the study. The risk mitigation procedures considered in this study include farm-level inspection, ante-mortem holding and inspection, post-mortem inspection, chilling/maturation and de-boning processes. The influence and effectiveness of aging/maturation and de-boning as risk mitigating procedures were quantified. The mitigation scenarios for mutton included: a) bone-out mutton aged/matured to pH = 6.0, b) bone-out mutton aged/matured to pH > 6.0, c) bone-in mutton aged/matured to pH = 6.0, d) bone-in mutton aged/matured to pH > 6.0. Alternative scenarios considered for beef were: a) FMD virus introduction from bordering countries, b) the influence of pH as a risk control measure (pH < 5.8 and pH > 5.8), c) vaccinated vs non-vaccinated herds, d) acute outbreak vs inapparent infection, e) the meat fully matured and processed in compliance with the final APHIS rules.
Computer simulations were carried out with the @RISK modelling software. It was assumed that 20,000 metric tons of mutton would be imported into the U.S. annually. A total of 5,000 iterations were performed for each of the scenarios/simulations, and the parameter values were determined by random sampling based on their triangular distributions. Statistics such as mean, minimum, maximum, mode, 5% and 95% percentiles of the major variables in the risk assessment were obtained. This paper presents the methodology used and the results of the study.
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