The aim of the project is to investigate regional and spatial heterogeneity in BT prevalence and surveillance intensity. Furthermore, the influence of the regional vaccination coverage on the prevalence in autumn 2008 and 2009 should be quantified. An thorough spatial description of the epidemic will be the start of the project. Then, for regions without outbreaks, regional or spatial explicit estimates for the upper limits of undetected prevalence for autumn 2008 and 2009 based on the combination of serological surveillance and clinical suspects should be derived. For regions with outbreaks, a small scale approach will be conducted to derive likelihood density maps for certain prevalence levels. On the national scale, estimates for heterogeneity in prevalence between cantons will be calculated at first and the observed differences will be analyzed for their statistical significance. Secondly, using CAR models, estimates for regional and global components of spatial heterogeneity in prevalence with and without consideration of the vaccination coverage as independent variable will be calculated and analyzed. As a last step, both results are combined to identify regions where the risk of BT persistence is increased and estimates for the influence of higher variation of vaccination coverage between cantons on the probability of BT persistence will be calculated.
