Lumpy skin disease has recently emerged as a major threat to cattle populations outside of Africa, where it is endemic. In 2015 the first ever European outbreaks occurred in Greece, which were followed by spread across much of the Balkans in 2016. Here we use a simple mathematical model for the transmission of lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) between herds to explore factors influencing its spread by fitting it to data on outbreaks in Albania in 2016. We show that most transmission occurs over short distances (<5 km), but with an appreciable probability of transmission at longer distances. We also show that there is evidence for seasonal variation in the force of infection associated with temperature, possibly through its influence on the relative abundance of the stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans. These two results together are consistent with LSDV being transmitted by the bites of blood-feeding insects, though further work is required to incriminate specific species as vectors. Finally, we show that vaccination has a significant impact on spread and estimate the vaccine effectiveness to be 76%.

中文翻译：

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从 2016 年阿尔巴尼亚的疫情中推断出块状皮肤病病毒在牛群之间的传播。


块状皮肤病最近已成为非洲以外地区牛群的主要威胁，该疾病在非洲流行。 2015 年，欧洲首次爆发疫情，随后于 2016 年在巴尔干半岛大部分地区蔓延。在这里，我们使用一个简单的数学模型来研究块状皮肤病病毒 (LSDV) 在牛群之间的传播，以探索影响其传播的因素通过将其与 2016 年阿尔巴尼亚疫情爆发的数据进行拟合。我们发现大多数传播发生在短距离（<5 公里），但在较长距离传播的可能性相当大。我们还表明，有证据表明感染力的季节性变化与温度相关，这可能是通过其对稳定蝇（Stomoxys calcitrans）相对丰度的影响来实现的。这两个结果与 LSDV 通过吸血昆虫叮咬传播的结果一致，尽管需要进一步的工作来确定特定物种是媒介。最后，我们表明疫苗接种对传播有显着影响，并估计疫苗有效性为 76%。