Statistical Monitoring of Condemnations from Slaughterhouses

Whole carcass condemnations (WCC) following meat inspection could be a valuable indirect indicator of national herd health to monitor. We evaluate the performance of the improved Farrington algorithm for the detection of simulated outbreaks in meat inspection data. Disease outbreaks of random sizes (leading to increased WCC at slaughter) were simulated in the time series of the number of cattle slaughtered and condemned in Switzerland between 2007 and 2012. Overall, the improved Farrington algorithm led to low false positive rates but the probability of detection was low for small outbreaks.