We hope that the UK will never see another major livestock disease outbreak such as foot and mouth disease or avian influenza. But if we do, we will be much better prepared to deal with it thanks to EPIC, the Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks. This interdisciplinary group of researchers from several Scottish institutions, including researchers from the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine, use a range of approaches to understand and mitigate disease spread to inform policy on control strategies, e.g. using animal movement data to simulate how an introduced disease would likely spread under various scenarios.
In this episode, Naturally Speaking’s Lucy Gilbert, also a member of EPIC, speaks with Prof Dominic Mellor and Dr Theo Pepler about the important work being done by this group towards emergency preparedness for livestock disease outbreaks in Scotland.
This podcast was edited by Lucy Gilbert and Taya Forde.
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Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2019©
Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]