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The year long epidemiological and economic study will help to provide enhanced information on the costs of eradicating FMD taking into account different disease control policies. It will take into account the economic consequences, not just to farmers, but also on wider rural communities, such as damage to tourism, disruption of countryside pursuits, and footpath closures.

It meets the recommendations of the Lessons Learned Inquiry into the 2001 FMD outbreak, which suggested that a CBA update was overdue and that "cost benefit analyses of FMD control strategies should be updated and maintained" in the UK.

The CBA will be based on a number of scenarios which will look at four main control options, including the use of vaccination. It will also take into account different regional and agricultural regions across Great Britain, stock densities, mixes of species and outbreaks of different sizes.

Animal Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: "The CBA will help inform decisions on which disease control option to use in which circumstances. It will also help plan resources for an outbreak; refine the Decision Tree; build consensus on when to use emergency vaccination and more generally improve the evidence on the costs of different disease control policies."

Source: Defra - 27th January 2004