Epidemics result in mass mortality of animals, devastating economic impacts on industries and communities, and they are often not confined by political boundaries. Diseases of livestock and poultry can be costly as they infect other animals or humans. The costs of diseases are due to loss of production, loss of animals, human morbidity, days of lost work and legal actions. The reintroduction of trans boundary diseases to the US is simply a matter of time. The likely threats are from tourism and bio terrorism.
Effective mitigation goes to the root of the problem, rather than prepare for a response.
There is a common misperception that diseases in other countries only threaten the US livestock agriculture. These diseases threaten all countries in the world. As such they must be addressed as global problems. The most effective mitigation against trans boundary diseases is to support the development of the veterinary profession in developing countries to a point where these countries can collect appropriate information on diseases that can be used to eradicate these diseases. Preparedness Educational programs that alert producers to the risk of epizootic and trans boundary diseases should be developed that are based on epidemiologic data.