CONCLUSION
In this study, we identified 24 pathways for the farm-to-farm
transmission of porcine infectious diseases, including the direct way
through animal transport and indirect modes by people, vehicles, and
other fomites. The high relevance of many of these pathways highlights
that neglecting them during outbreak investigations or disease
modelling, research may have substantial repercussions, especially
following the introduction of pathogens that are easily transmitted via
fomites and aerosols. Our disease-specific risk classification of these
pathways brings a valuable contribution to comprehensive surveillance
and control strategies. While the simple scaling system we adopted does
not result in exact parameter estimates applicable to disease
transmission simulation models, it allows estimating parameters for
given pathways, relative to those already known in the literature. In
addition, the parallel exploration of farmers’ practices, attitudes and
perceptions towards potential disease pathways performed in our study,
make it possible to relate the findings to the target community for
disease surveillance and control.