| Mission |
The group of QVE (Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology) is part of the group Animal Husbandry, but also has formal connections with ID-Lelystad en the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Utrecht. Together with the chair of Farm Management these parties form the Consortium of Veterinarye Epidemiology . | Concerning the educational tasks, QVE is responsible for a number of basic and advanced course elements, student externships, student theses and PhD education related to veterinary epidemiology. As member of the consortium the group is also responsible for the Utrecht based MSc course 'Veterinary Epidemiology and Animal Health Economics'. | The research of the group mainly focuses on the development of transmission models for infectious agents in livestock, in which knowledge from theoretical biology, veterinary science, animal science, mathematics and statistics are integrated. Such models are supported with data from experiments or from field studies. These models are used for: | *redicting the course of an epidemic (example: classical swine fever (CSF) epidemic outbreak in NL in 1997) | *predicting the effects of interventions (example: CSF 1997) | *development of disease control programs (example: eradication program for Aujeszky s disease in pigs in NL) | *development of monitoring programs (example: assessing the progress of the eradication of IBR in cattle in NL) | *giving indications about the quality of the diagnostic test(s) in order to fight a disease successfully. |Emphasis in research is also given to: | Fundamental aspects of diagnostic testing, as the quality of the diagnostics is essential for the success of a disease control program | Identification and quantification of risk factors in order to select suitable interventions |
