Direct costs of five foot-and-mouth disease epidemics in the Republic of Korea, from 2000 to 2011

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has great potential for causing huge economic loss and was the first disease identified by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in its official list of free countries and zones. This study examined the governmental expenditures for five FMD epidemics that occurred in the Republic of Korea between 2000 and 2011. The costs of an epidemic ranged from 26 billion Korean won (KRW, approximately 23.6 million US dollars, $) to a maximum of 2,044 billion KRW (US$ 1.9 billion). For two epidemics in which vaccinations were implemented, the costs were higher than those epidemics without vaccination. The mean cost for an outbreak ranged from 0.5 billion KRW (US$ 4.5 million) for the 2010/2011 epidemic to 18.2 billion KRW (US$ 16.5 million) for the 2000 epidemic. Mean costs per infected premises were 7.0 billion KRW for cattle farms (95% CI: 4.72 9.28), 1.38 billion KRW for pig farms (0.88 1.87), 0.11 billion KRW for deer farms (0.08 0.14), and 0.10 billion KRW for goat farms (0.07 0.13). The highest cost for an outbreak in cattle seemed associated with the number of outbreak cattle farms in two epidemics in which vaccination was implemented.