Cross-border movements of animal pathogens can lead to dramatic social and economic consequences. Therefore countries implement prevention measures (e.g. surveillance, border controls and trade restrictions) to reduce the probability of entry of new pathogens.

The Risk Monitoring Tool (RMT-FAST) is a simple and easy-to-use tool designed to assist health authorities to identify the most likely routes and source countries for the introduction of pathogens responsible for foot-and-mouth and similar transboundary (FAST) animal diseases (peste des petits ruminants, lumpy skin disease, Rift Valley fever, sheep pox and goat pox). It is a semi quantitative risk-ranking framework designed to be readily updated to adapt to changes in the epidemiological situation or of control strategies.  

Premise

Connections: Countries may be connected in different ways, such as trade, proximity and transportation routes; each of these connections may contribute to one or more disease spread pathways.

Pathways: Diseases can spread between countries via different transmission pathways, namely airborne, vectors, wild animals, animal products, live animals movements and fomites. Each pathway is more or less effective for each disease.

Likelihood of FAST disease entry is proportional to: the disease burden in the source country; the strength of connection between the source country and target country and the effectiveness of different pathways at transmitting disease.

Scores

The tool uses information provided by both EuFMD and the user of the tool. EuFMD activities in the European neighbourhood countries are used to inform and regularly update scores regarding the epidemiological situation (disease status) and the national control measures for FAST diseases (mitigation measures). 

The user will supply information about the “connection factors” (i.e. live animal trade, geographic proximity, etc…) which are used to estimate the strength of connection between the country of interest (called “target country”) and the potential source countries, through six pathways (airborne, live animal contact, product of animal origin trade, vectors, fomites, wild animals).

How does the RMT-FAST work?

RMT calculates a risk score for each disease and source country. The scores are used for comparison for a given FAST disease, between countries and between pathways. A higher score implies a higher risk of entry from a particular country or through a specific pathway. However, the absolute value is meaningless and scores should not be compared between different diseases. 

In brief:

Risk score = disease risk * sum across pathways (pathway effectiveness*connection strength for that pathway)