School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine

Epidemiology of Foot-and-Mouth Disease

[work carried out in collaboration with IAH-Pirbright]

Project Questions and Objectives

This project encompasses a broad range of questions, amongst which are:

• How quickly does FMDV evolve in the field?
• How quickly does FMDV evolve during a single individual infection?
• Does the concept of quasi-species help us to understand viral evolution?
• At what resolution can we trace transmission pathways using RNA sequence data?
• How does observed sequence variation translate into antigenic diversity?
• Can we test vaccine potency without using animal challenge experiments
• What lessons can we learn about the control of FMDV from the UK 2001 outbreak?

Project Description

This work is conducted in close collaboration with many colleagues and is of a very varied nature.

References and Manuscripts

• Haydon, D.T. , Kao. R. and Kitching, R.P. (2004). The UK foot-and-mouth disease outbreak - the aftermath. Nature Reviews Microbiology 2, 675-681.
• Haydon, D.T. , Awadalla, P. and Bastos. A.D.S. 2004. Low linkage disequilibrium indicative of recombination in foot-and-mouth disease virus gene sequence alignments. Journal of General Virology 85, 1077-1093.
• Matthews, L., Haydon, D.T., Shaw, D.J., Chase-Topping, M., and Woolhouse, M.E.J. (2003). Neighborhood control policies and the spread of infectious disease. Proceedings: Biological Sciences (The Royal Society, UK) 270, 1659-1666.
• Barnett, P., Statham, R.J., Vosloo, W., and Haydon, D.T. (2003). Foot-and-mouth disease vaccine potency testing: Determination and statistical validation of a model using a serological approach. Vaccine 21, 3240-3248.
• Bastos, A.D.S., Haydon, D.T.,Sangare, O., Edrich, J.L., Boshoff, C.I., and Thomson, G.R. (2003). The implications of viral diversity within the SAT-2 serotype for control of foot-and-mouth disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of General Virology 84, 1595-1606.
• Haydon, D.T ., Topping, M.C., Shaw, D.J., Matthews, L., Friar, J.K., Wilesmith, J., and Woolhouse, M.E.J. (2003). The construction and analysis of epidemic trees with reference to the 2001 UK foot-and-mouth outbreak. Proceedings: Biological Sciences (The Royal Society, UK) 270, 121-127.
• Hughes, G.J., Mioulet, V., Haydon, D.T., Kitching, P.R., Donaldson , A.I., and Woolhouse, M.E.J. (2002). Serial passage of foot-and-mouth disease virus in sheep reveals declining levels of viraemia through time. Journal of General Virology 83, 1907-1914.
• van Rensburg, H., Haydon, D., Fourie Joubert, F., Bastos, A.D.S., Heath, L., and Nel, L. (2002). Genetic heterogeneity in the foot-and-mouth disease virus Leader and 3C proteinase genes. Gene 289, 19-29.
• Woolhouse, M.E.J., Chase-Topping, M., Haydon, D.T., Friar, J., Matthews, L., Hughes, G., Shaw, D., Wilesmith, J., Donaldson, A., Cornell, S., Keeling, M., Grenfell, B.T. (2001). Epidemiology: Foot-and-mouth disease under control in the UK. Nature 411, 258-259.
• Keeling, M.J., Woolhouse, M.E.J., Shaw, D.J., Matthews, L., Topping, M.C., Haydon, D.T., Cornell, S.J., Kappey, J., Wilesmith, J., and Grenfell, B.T. (2001). Dynamics of the 2001 UK Foot and Mouth Epidemic: Stochastic Dispersal in a Heterogeneous Landscape. Science 294: 813-817.
• Bastos, A.D.S., Haydon, D.T., Forsberg, R., Knowles, N.J., Anderson, E.C., Bengis, R.G., Nel, L.H., and Thomson, G.R. (2001). Genetic heterogeneity of SAT-1 type foot-and-mouth disease viruses in southern Africa. Archives of Virology 146, 1537-1551.
• Haydon, D.T. , Samuel, A.R., and Knowles, N.J. (2001). The generation and persistence of genetic variation in foot-and-mouth disease virus. Preventative Veterinary Medicine 51, 111-124.
• Haydon, D.T. , Bastos, A., Samuel, A., and Knowles, N. (2001). Evidence for positive selection in foot-and-mouth-disease-virus capsid genes from field isolates. Genetics 157, 7-15.
• Haydon, D.T. , Lea, S., Fry, E., Knowles, N., Samuel, A.R., Stuart, D., and Woolhouse, M.E.J. (1998). Characterizing sequence variation in the VP1 capsid proteins of foot-and-mouth disease virus (Serotype O) with respect to virion structure. Journal of Molecular Evolution 46, 465-475.
• Haydon, D.T. , Woolhouse, M.E.J. and Kitching, R. P. (1997). An analysis of foot and mouth disease epidemics in the UK. IMA Journal of Mathematical Applications in Medicine and Biology 14, 1-9.
• Woolhouse, M.E.J., Haydon, D.T., Pearson, A., and Kitching, R.P. (1996). Failure of vaccination to prevent outbreaks of foot and mouth disease. Epidemiology and Infection 116, 363-371.