Veterinary Research Communications, 31 (2007) 819–834 DOI: 10.1007/s11259-007-0125-1 C  Springer 2007 Temporal and Spatial Distributions of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Under Three Different Strategies of Control and Eradication in Colombia (1982–2003) M.L. Gallego 1,2 , A.M. Perez 2,3, ∗ and M.C. Thurmond 2 1 Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario, Bogot´ a, Colombia; 2 Foot-and-Mouth Disease Laboratory, Center for Animal Diseases Modeling and Surveillance, Department of Medicine & Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis CA, 95616; 3 Consejo de Investigaciones Cient´ ıficas y T´ ecnicas – Instituto Nacional de Tecnolog´ ıa Agropecuaria, Estaci´ on Balcarce, Grupo de Sanidad Animal, Balcarce, Argentina ∗ Correspondence: E-mail: amperez@ucdavis.edu ABSTRACT Outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) from January 1982 through December 2003 were used to examine variations in serotype- and species-specific risk for three control programmes in Colombia:(1982–1983) vacci- nation, using an aluminium hydroxide, saponin adjuvant, required but not enforced; (1984–1996) vaccination, using an oil double-emulsion adjuvant, required but not enforced; and (1997–2003) enforced vaccination, using an oil double-emulsion adjuvant, restricted animal movement enforced, and slaughter of infected an- imals. Hypotheses were tested for trend, cyclicity and seasonality in FMD occurrence, and for species- and serotype-specific differences in morbidity and case-fatality. The spatial density of outbreaks was estimated by kernel smoothing. The frequency of outbreaks decreased most between 1984 and 1996 ( p < 0.01) for serotype A and between 1997 and 2003 ( p < 0.01) for serotype O. Outbreaks occurred in cycles of 3–4 years for both serotypes ( p < 0.05). Morbidity was not significantly different in pigs from that in cattle for serotype A-associated outbreaks ( p = 0.314), but was higher in pigs than in cattle ( p = 0.019) for serotype O-associated outbreaks. For both serotypes, case-fatality was higher for pigs than for cattle ( p < 0.009). Tem- poral variation in FMD incidence provided insight into the expected evolution of FMD control for countries with similar conditions and where FMD is endemic. Keywords: foot-and-mouth disease, epidemiology, control programme, Colombia Abbreviations: FMD, foot-and-mouth disease; ICA, Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario; OIE, Office Interna- tional des Epizooties; PACF, partial autocorrelation function; PANAFTOSA, Pan American Foot-and-Mouth Disease Center INTRODUCTION Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a vesicular disease of cloven-hoofed animals caused by a virus of the Picornaviridae family (Pharo, 2002). FMD is considered one of the most impor- tant livestock diseases in the world (Sutmoller and Casas Olascoaga, 2002) because of the severe socio-economic costs imposed on countries with the disease (Pluimers et al., 2002). FMD epidemics in previously free regions can have pronounced social, economic and po- litical impacts (Chmitelin and Moutou, 2002; Pluimers et al., 2002) associated with control and eradication, as was experienced recently by the United Kingdom in 2001 (Thompson et al., 2002). While the USA has been FMD-free since 1929, models indicate that in a 819