Bovine Ephemeral Fever in Turkey and its Economic Effect

Abstract

Bovine ephemeral fever (BEF) is a viral infection that causes a significant decrease in milk and meat production, causes infertility in cows and bulls, abortion and a significant economic loss due to its rapid spread in the herd. Partial budgeting method was used in the study to measure the economic impact of vaccine use and not using the vaccine. In line with preventive medicine, it has been determined that if animals are vaccinated regularly, there is an average of $8.10 vaccination cost per animal, but the average treatment cost of an animal that has not been vaccinated during the epidemic is $20.2. It was determined in the economic analysis that in addition to the treatment costs, the loss of milk for a dairy cow increased to approximately $85, for a livestock to $148 with the loss of condition, but the economic loss increased due to high morbidity. In this context, early diagnosis, detection and monitoring of spreading conditions are as extremely important as vaccination in the fight against BEF infection. It can be said that the economic loss will be minimized with the vaccination and preventive medicine practices to be made by rapid intervention to the disease with the early warning system created by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for this purpose in Turkey.