Within the European Union, but also globally, the disease status for cattle diseases differs between countries and even between regions within countries.

Several European countries have already implemented national or regional surveillance, control, or eradication programmes for infectious diseases that are not regulated by the EU. Such diseases are defined as diseases that are not included in list A or B in the new animal health law (e.g. BVD, IBR, Salmonellosis, Paratuberculosis, EBL, Q-fever, Trichomonosis). Disease control programmes bring tangible benefits including improved animal health and welfare, reduced antibiotic use, and reduced direct and indirect farm production losses. Therefore, development and participation in control programs are to be strongly supported.

In addition to the envisaged benefits, these programmes also create difficulties for intra-community trade, as trade has the potential to introduce infectious agents into regions where disease freedom has been achieved. While there is a good overview and description on regulated diseases on European level and control programs are published on European websites, there is a lack of information for non-regulated cattle diseases.

Approaches as well as details of the control programs, such as herd management, screening, surveillance, use of vaccines, etc., vary widely. However, t is important for farmers, farmer’s organizations as well as decision makers, to get an overview on the situation in other countries in order to avoid endangering any progress made in eradication or control in their regions or countries. Concurrently, the knowledge of these details and experiences gained in current control schemes provide invaluable help to design new control schemes in hitherto unregulated regions.

The aim of this research topic will be to improve the knowledge on control and eradication programs for all cattle diseases in Europe and beyond with a special focus on “non-regulated cattle diseases”, like BVD, IBR, Salmonellosis, Paratuberculosis, EBL, Q-fever, or Trichomonosis. Nonetheless, as regulations changes often and national classification might be stricter than European regulations, non-regulated diseases cannot clearly be separated. Hence, the research topic will cover both, regulated (e.g. Bluetongue disease, bovine tuberculosis) and non-regulated cattle diseases (e.g. BVD, IBR, Salmonellosis, Paratuberculosis, EBL, Q-fever, Trichomonosis). As a basis for planning control programs, or to evaluate the success of a control program, studies on the current epidemiological situation are included in the research topic.

In support to this endeavour, we welcome both, reviews and original research articles describing or analysing control programs of cattle diseases. The following areas will be covered in this Research Topic, but not limited to:
– Description on disease control or surveillance systems
– Role of vaccination and genetic diversity in disease control
– Diagnostics and possible pitfalls and its influence on the control schemes
– Epidemiological situation in a given area

B. Conrady, N. Decaro, D. Graham, J.F. Ridipath, I. Santman-Berends, S. Strain, J., Gethmann, M. Schweizer, Editorial: Global Control and Eradication Programmes for Cattle Diseases, Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8 (2021) 806111.