The Economic Impact of Eradicating Peste des Petits Ruminants: A Benefit-Cost Analysis

Abstract

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an important cause of mortality and production loss among sheep and goats in the developing world. Despite control efforts in a number of countries, it has continued to spread across Africa and Asia, placing an increasing burden on the livelihoods of livestock keepers and on veterinary resources in affected countries. Given the similarities between PPR and rinderpest, and the lessons learned from the successful global eradication of rinderpest, the eradication of PPR seems appealing, both eliminating an important disease and improving the livelihoods of the poor in developing countries. We conducted a benefit-cost analysis to examine the economic returns from a proposed programme for the global eradication of PPR. Based on our knowledge and experience, we developed the eradication strategy and estimated its costs. The benefits of the programme were determined from (i) the averted mortality costs, based on an analysis of the literature, (ii) the downstream impact of reduced mortality using a social accounting matrix, and (iii) the avoided control costs based on current levels of vaccination. The results of the benefit-cost analysis suggest strong economic returns from PPR eradication. Based on a 15-year programme with total discounted costs of US$2.26 billion, we estimate discounted benefits of US$76.5 billion, yielding a net benefit of US$74.2 billion. This suggests a benefit cost ratio of 33.8, and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 199%. As PPR mortality rates are highly variable in different populations, we conducted a sensitivity analysis based on lower and higher mortality scenarios. All the scenarios examined indicate that investment in PPR eradication would be highly beneficial economically. Furthermore, removing one of the major constraints to small ruminant production would be of considerable benefit to many of the most vulnerable communities in Africa and Asia.

Sero-prevalence study to determine the effectiveness of Peste de Petits Ruminants vaccination in Somalia

“…In the same study, unit cost of Rinderpest vaccination in Ethiopia was estimated as ECU 0.27 (USD 0.33) and this relatively low unit cost was attributed to economies of scale. The estimated cost of a dose of PPR vaccine in Somalia was USD 0.12 which compares favourably with the USD 0.10 reported by Jones et al (2016) in other parts of Africa. However, the unit cost of service delivery of the PPR vaccine per animal was different.…”

“…Despite the immense sociopolitical challenges existing currently in Somalia, nearly 20 million small ruminants distributed across the country were immunised achieving an overall vaccination coverage of 97.6%, placing Somalia among the first countries in the Horn of Africa to implement a country-wide PPR vaccination campaign of such magnitude. This level of coverage is much higher than the average annual vaccination coverage of 15% reported to World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) by PPR-infected countries, according to a study by Jones et al (2016). In the Greater Horn of Africa region, Kenya vaccinated an estimated two million goats and sheep against PPR in 2006 in Turkana County (Kihu et al 2015a, b).…”

“…Vaccination has been described as the preferred tool for controlling and eradicating PPR, especially in countries where it is difficult to control animal movement (Jones et al 2016). Ideally, the PPR vaccination should be timelimited with high coverage to achieve the necessary herd immunity in high-risk areas.…”

“…The large-scale vaccination has reduced the effective contact rate, thus curbing the spread of PPR among the small stock. Moreover, such vaccination campaigns have been reported to reduce the socio-economic impact of PPR (Jones et al 2016).…”

Future research to underpin successful peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) eradication

“…PPR has therefore been highlighted as a significant disease in need of immediate global control [4]. The impact of PPR is perhaps best illustrated from an economic perspective, as it is estimated to cause $1.45-$2.1 billion (USD) worth of losses per year [4,6].…”