Foot-and-mouth disease and its effect on milk yield: an economic analysis on livestock holders in Pakistan.

A longitudinal study has been conducted in the provinces of Sindh, Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory area, Pakistan, to evaluate the impact of foot-and-mouth disease on milk yield in a sample of farmers owning cattle and buffaloes. The sample consisted of 50 farms where the presence of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus was initially suspected on the basis of clinical signs and subsequently confirmed through either a field test or laboratory confirmation. In each farm, the total number of clinical cases was registered, and clinically diseased milking cattle and buffaloes were followed up for the next 60 days from the onset of clinical signs and the amount of milk yield measured. The average milk yield, estimated to be around 10 l per animal before the onset of FMD, decreased significantly in the 2 months following the onset of acute clinical disease. The loss of milk production in the 60 days following the onset of clinical signs was estimated to be around 220 and 201 l for cattle and buffaloes, respectively. Under the assumption that the administration of a good-quality vaccine matching circulating FMD strains could protect against clinical disease, the benefit/cost ratio for having all animals vaccinated in all 50 farms was estimated to be 5.7.

The effects of health services utilization on the recovery from dysentery.

A community-based programme for the treatment of dysentery in children under five years of age was implemented in Matlab, Bangladesh. Dysentery cases, identified at home, were referred to a sub-center for standard treatment with nalidixic acid. To assess the response to this intervention, a one year survey was carried out in 1990. The incidence of dysentery in this age group was 7 per cent. Isolation of Shigella species was 27 per cent (47/177) and was strongly associated with the frequency of stools (chi2 for trend, P = 0.001). S. flexneri accounted for 81 per cent of the isolates. Only 45 per cent of the cases were actually taken to the sub-center, 27 per cent went to traditional healers and 23 per cent used private allopathic services. Less than 40 per cent of the shigellosis cases received the suggested standard treatment. The overall recovery rate at 7 days, based arbitrarily on the number and type of stools, was 62 per cent and quite homogeneous among the types of services used. Neither the presence of Shigella isolates nor the type of treatment were associated with a higher recovery rate. We concluded that a systematic treatment of dysentery patients should be more selective on shigellosis.