A single outbreak of a foreign animal disease (FAD)—whether foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever, or peste des petits ruminants—can bring a nation’s livestock industry to a grinding halt. These viruses are fast-moving, hard to control, and devastating to animal health and rural economies alike. Infected animals may suffer painful symptoms or die. Even in countries where the diseases are not currently found, the threat looms large: trade restrictions, emergency culling, and lost market access can trigger billions in losses.

While the U.S. is currently free from all three of these FADs, an outbreak could carry staggering costs. In the case of African Swine Fever (ASF), for example, economic losses have been projected to exceed $50 billion and eliminate over 140,000 jobs. And for FMD, costs of up to $200 billion have been estimated from trade losses, and control measures, and lost production.

The ripple effects would reach well beyond the livestock sector. Supply chains, grain markets, consumer prices, and rural economies would all feel the strain. And because these viruses don’t respect borders, the most effective prevention begins far from U.S. soil.

At the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine’s (CVM) Center for Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS), researchers are working to stay ahead of these threats by learning from the countries already living with them. Whether tracking virus evolution in Sri Lanka, evaluating control efforts in the Dominican Republic, or strengthening diagnostics in Africa, they’re generating insights that help protect U.S. herds—and the people and industries who depend on them.

Learning from endemic regions

Umanga Gunasekera, a veterinarian and postdoctoral researcher at CAHFS, has spent her career focused on one of the most contagious animal viruses: foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). A trained veterinarian from Sri Lanka, she worked with livestock in a country where FMD is a regular, costly threat. Cattle often suffer production losses; control tools are limited; and surveillance systems can be patchy. 

“With no strategic plan in place to prevent future outbreaks for FMD, I saw that we need a better understanding of the epidemiology of FMD,” Gunasekera described. “This is also true of other contagious livestock diseases. So I was inspired to pursue research on the disease—to improve our understanding starting from the basics, using methods that can be widely applicable to other diseases as well.”

Her experience led her to earn a master's in veterinary public health from Freie Universität Berlin and Chiang Mai University, followed by a PhD in veterinary medicine at the University of Minnesota. At CAHFS, she focused on building the global evidence base for FMD prevention.

In a recent study, Gunasekera reviewed all existing literature on FMD’s effective reproductive number (R), a key statistic used to estimate how quickly an infection spreads between farms. She found just 10 empirical studies in the last two decades—a striking gap in global knowledge. The values reported ranged widely depending on livestock density, geography, and other variables.

This variability, she explains, makes planning difficult, especially for FMD-free countries like the U.S., where imported strains could behave unpredictably. Gunasekera’s earlier work in Vietnam validated multiple statistical approaches to calculating R using real outbreak data, and her research in South Asia used machine learning to map high-risk zones in countries with limited reporting infrastructure.

Gunasekera’s work expands the knowledge base about FMD and what it takes to control it. Her research not only benefits the countries studied, but also strengthens global preparedness. After all, a serious outbreak in one region can have far-reaching consequences.

The complexity of containment

While Gunasekera works to understand FMD dynamics, CAHFS researchers Rachel Schambow and Jesper Chia-Hui Hsu are doing the same for ASF. Their focus: the Dominican Republic and the Philippines, where ASF was recently reported, making it a good example of what could happen in the U.S. if the disease was ever introduced .Schambow’s work uses spatial and temporal modeling to map disease spread and evaluate how well control strategies are working. A Wisconsin native and veterinarian who also holds a PhD, Schambow brings a background in both livestock production and disease control to her role as a CAHFS researcher.

Through two recent studies, Schambow has helped clarify what long-term disease control might actually look like on the ground in countries such as the Dominican Republic. Drawing on government surveillance and outbreak data, she analyzed how ASF continues to move among farms—especially small-scale backyard operations with limited biosecurity—and calculated transmission dynamics over time. Her findings support a shift away from emergency-response mode and toward tailored, progressive control strategies that reflect the current reality. That’s especially critical for lower-resource settings, where long-term sustainability depends on aligning policy with veterinary services capacity and day-to-day production practices.

Hsu, who earned his veterinary degree in Taiwan, completed his epidemiology PhD and now serves as a postdoctoral associate at CAHFS, adds an environmental and behavioral lens. His research explores how seasonal flooding, carcass disposal practices, and farmer decision-making can accelerate disease spread. “At a high level it’s about human behavior,” Hsu says. “What are the right motivations and incentives to consider in creating policy that people will follow?”

Farmers, he explains, often hesitate to report sick animals because the financial cost of culling is too high. That reluctance leads to unregulated disposal and wider spread, particularly during monsoon season. His work also highlights the mental health toll on veterinarians—often the first responders during outbreaks—emphasizing the need for preparedness strategies that support resilience.

While ASF has not yet reached U.S. soil, its potential impact on Minnesota’s swine industry makes proactive research essential. By working closely with partners in countries where the disease is already endemic, CAHFS researchers are gaining critical insight into its environmental, social, and economic ripple effects. One ongoing project, for example, is evaluating those impacts in the Philippines and using social science approaches to inform future U.S. preparedness efforts. These international collaborations help to build global capacity while also ensuring U.S. policy and prevention strategies are grounded in on-the-ground realities.

Diagnostics, data, and decision-making

Sylvester Ochwo, a postdoctoral associate originally from Uganda, brings vast experience in veterinary diagnostics and epidemiology through his previous work in ASF and FMD endemic areas in East Africa. His current work focuses on how diagnostic tools can support fast, effective decision-making. 

In recent years, there has been a surge in the development of point-of-care (POC) tests for ASF—simple, rapid tools that could be used on farms. But their performance is uneven. “In an outbreak, farmers and vets don’t have time to wait days for test results,” Ochwo says. “But if POC tests aren’t accurate under field conditions, easy to use, and affordable, they could do more harm than good.” His research is helping evaluate various attributes of POC tests which make them suitable for use, such as fitness for purpose, real-time connectivity, ease of specimen collection, affordability, sensitivity, specificity, user-friendliness, rapidity and robustness, equipment-free operation, and deliverability, in real-world conditions in Uganda and the Dominican Republic, and to determine how they might fit into the U.S. testing landscape.

That work comes at a critical moment. ASF’s dramatic global spread since 2018—including its arrival in parts of Asia and the Americas—there’s been a proliferation of diagnostic tools, many introduced rapidly to meet urgent demand. But few have been rigorously vetted, and global standards for performance and use remain inconsistent. Ochwo is working to change that. By analyzing how POC tests perform under field conditions and identifying what metrics truly matter—sensitivity, specificity, ease of use—he’s helping clarify when and how they can support high-stakes decisions, like whether to cull a herd. The insights can also inform U.S. preparedness planning.

In places like Uganda, where ASF is endemic and lab testing is often delayed or inaccessible, POC diagnostics could make or break outbreak response. Ochwo’s findings are also being put into practice in Uganda and the Dominican Republic, where veterinary teams are piloting the use of ASFV POC tests as part of the available diagnostics options to support decision-making during suspected outbreaks.. “In lower-resource settings, these tools can stretch capacity,” Ochwo says. “But only if we know which ones work best, and how to use them wisely.”

A global threat, a global opportunity

Some diseases still offer a window for eradication—if countries act fast. One of them is peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a fast-spreading viral disease of sheep and goats. Causing high mortality in small ruminants, PPR threatens food security and rural livelihoods in regions across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. But it’s also one of the few livestock diseases, along with ASF and FMD, with an active global eradication campaign coordinated by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with a target end date of 2030.

Dinara Imanbayeva, a veterinarian and PhD researcher originally from Kazakhstan, is focused on helping countries meet that goal. Through work in Morocco, Cape Verde, and other nations, Imanbayeva is assessing where gaps remain in vaccination and surveillance—and advising how countries can improve their efforts to achieve official “freedom” from PPR, a WOAH designation that opens the door to expanded international trade and greater regional stability. “The final step in eradication is official recognition,” she says. “But before that, countries need strong systems for detection and reporting. They need to show that their data is reliable.”

Imanbayeva brings firsthand knowledge of these systems. Before coming to the U.S., she worked with the Kazakh government on disease eradication initiatives. She was later invited to join the FAO as a consultant for PPR eradication in Western Eurasia—an experience that revealed her own need for advanced training in disease modeling and surveillance. That realization brought her to CAHFS, where she is now completing a PhD.

Her work has revealed a complex global picture. Some countries, like Cape Verde, have no official reports of PPR, but they lack the infrastructure to be certain the disease isn’t circulating. Others, like Morocco, are actively vaccinating yet still report outbreaks. And a growing number of countries previously considered free of PPR—Romania, Greece, Hungary—have experienced recent resurgences, underscoring the disease’s continued risk to trade and animal health systems.

That risk includes the U.S., where PPR has never been detected but where contingency planning remains crucial. Imanbayeva is now turning part of her attention to U.S. preparedness, drawing lessons from international eradication efforts to recommend strategies for detection and response. “When countries make progress toward eradication, the whole world benefits,” she says. “Fewer outbreaks elsewhere means less risk here.”

From global science to U.S. strategy

All of this work—from diagnostics to modeling, mental health to environmental impact—feeds directly into policy. Ongoing CAHFS’ initiatives connect researchers and veterinarians from FAD-endemic countries with U.S. officials and veterinary practitioners, creating space for candid dialogue and knowledge transfer.

Ultimately, says Schambow, the value is in understanding diseases where they are before they get here. “If we wait until there’s an outbreak to start preparing, it’s already too late.”

That’s what makes international partnerships essential, says CAHFS Director Andres Perez, who also holds the Endowed Chair of Global Animal Health and Food Safety at CVM. “Much of the U.S. livestock production (for example, 30% of total pork production, representing approximately $8.1 billion per year) is exported, contributing to the sustainability and growth of our economy. An epidemic of any of the diseases studied by CAHFS researchers would cause a profound impact in the country,” Perez describes. “Because those diseases are not present in the US, field studies in international settings affected by those diseases are the only option to enhance our preparedness. Learning how these diseases behave in ‘peace times’ is the only way to enhance our preparation for an eventual epidemic, providing a critical service to our country.”

By learning from countries on the front lines of disease, CAHFS researchers are helping ensure the U.S. stays one step ahead. With every international partnership, U.S. preparedness grows stronger and more informed.