Foot and mouth disease vaccination and post-vaccination monitoring

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) control and/or eradication efforts have been in existence for many years in different regions, supported by an official OIE system for recognition of national control programmes and of country status to manage the trade risks for FMD reintroduction. A global FMD control strategy was announced by FAO and OIE in 2012, incorporating a progressive control pathway for FMD (PCP-FMD) that elaborates principles for the application of control measures in a step-wise manner. The OIE Performance of Veterinary Services tool helps countries to monitor the structures essential for programme implementation.Vaccination is an important component of programmes that seek to reduce the impacts of FMD and to block circulation of the causative virus in order to establish and maintain disease freedom. Choosing and successfully implementing the appropriate vaccine and vaccination regimens are affected by many dynamic factors, including (1) the diversity of the viruses to be controlled; (2) the performance characteristics and instability of vaccines; (2) the range of susceptible animal species and husbandry systems; (3) the purposes of vaccination; (4) the short-lived nature of vaccine induced immunity; and (5) the design and application of vaccination programmes. Furthermore, vaccination is unlikely to succeed unless supported by other complementary control measures. Therefore, the entire process of vaccine selection and vaccination must be continuously monitored and evaluated to ensure that it fulfils its objectives and contributes to a sustainable control of FMD. This document is intended to help guide this process. Since the variable and changing circumstances of FMD control require different approaches, the guidance is not prescriptive. Instead, it reviews the options available for vaccine selection and vaccination strategies and presents methodology to check that a potential vaccine is able to provide a protective immune response and that the implemented vaccination programme has translated this into a protective level of population immunity.