Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is contagious, acute viral disease of all cloven-hoofed animals. The disease is endemic in Ethiopia and causes multiple outbreak every year all over the country. While it is important to understand to the transmission dynamics of FMD outbreaks for appropriate control intervention, no such study has been done in Ethiopia. Thus, the aims of this study were to estimate the basic reproduction number (R0) of FMD and simulate FMD transmission dynamics of FMD in Amhara region of Ethiopia. Basic reproduction number (R0) was estimated from age stratified sero-prevalence data through maximum likelihood estimation. A stochastic SIR (susceptible-infectious-recovered) compartmental FMD model was formulated and parameterized using literature and age stratified sero-prevalence field data. The R0 of FMD in the region was estimated to be 1.27 (95%CI: 1.20-1.34). The simulation of the SIR model showed only 24% (95% CI: 16-32%) of the infection introduced in the region caused major outbreaks. Out of the major outbreaks 25% of them tend to persist in the region. Major outbreaks cause 38.9% (95% CI: 38.8-39.1%) morbidity and 0.0019% (95% CI: 0.0018-0.0020%) mortality in cattle and the outbreaks stayed for an average of 690 days (95%CI: 655-727). Validation of the model prediction with farmer's field experience indicated a fairly similar result especially for the predicted morbidity caused by outbreaks. This study revealed low transmission of FMD within the Amhara region cattle population indicating not very high vaccination coverage is needed, if control through vaccination is envisaged at regional level. However, owing to several simplified assumptions made during the modeling, this conclusion should be taken cautiously.

中文翻译：

---

模拟埃塞俄比亚阿姆哈拉地区手足口病的传播动力学。

口蹄疫（FMD）是所有偶蹄类动物的传染性急性病毒性疾病。该病在埃塞俄比亚是地方病，每年在全国各地引起多次暴发。尽管了解FMD爆发的传播动态以采取适当的控制干预措施很重要，但埃塞俄比亚尚未进行过此类研究。因此，本研究的目的是估计埃塞俄比亚阿姆哈拉地区口蹄疫的基本繁殖数量（R0），并模拟口蹄疫的口蹄疫传播动态。根据年龄分层的血清流行率数据，通过最大似然估计来估计基本繁殖数（R0）。使用文献和年龄分层的血清流行病学现场数据，建立了随机的SIR（易感感染恢复）隔室FMD模型并进行了参数化。该地区FMD的R0估计为1.27（95％CI：1.20-1.34）。SIR模型的模拟显示，在该地区引入的感染中仅24％（95％CI：16-32％）引起了大爆发。在主要疫情中，有25％倾向于在该地区持续存在。重大暴发导致牛的发病率38.9％（95％CI：38.8-39.1％）和0.0019％（95％CI：0.0018-0.0020％）死亡率，暴发平均持续了690天（95％CI：655-727） ）。结合农民的实地经验对模型预测的验证表明，结果相当相似，尤其是对于暴发引起的预计发病率。这项研究表明，如果设想在地区一级通过疫苗接种进行控制，则阿姆哈拉地区牛群中口蹄疫的传播率较低，这表明不需要很高的疫苗接种覆盖率。然而，