Network analysis of pig movements in Ecuador: Strengthening surveillance of classical swine fever

The analysis of domestic pig movements has become useful to understand the disease spread patterns and epidemiology, which facilitates the development of more effective animal diseases control strategies. The aim of this work was to analyse the static and spatial characteristics of the pig network, to identify its trading communities and to study the contribution of the network to the transmission of classical swine fever. In this regard, we used the pig movement records from the National Veterinary Service of Ecuador (2017–2019), using social network analysis and spatial analysis to construct a network with registered premises as nodes and their movements as edges. Furthermore, we also created a network of parishes as its nodes by aggregating their premises movements as edges. The annual network metrics showed an average diameter of 20.33, a number of neighbours of 2.61, a shortest path length of 4.39 and a clustering coefficient of 0.38 (small-world structure). The most frequent movements were to or from markets (55%). Backyard producers made up 89% of the network premises, and the top 2% of parishes (highest degree) contributed to 50% of the movements. The highest frequencies of movements between parishes were in the centre of the country, while the highest frequency of movements to abattoirs was in the south-west. Finally, the pattern of classical swine fever (CSF) disease outbreaks within the Ecuador network was likely the result of network transmission processes. In conclusion, our results represented the first exploratory analysis of domestic pig movements at premise and parish levels. The surveillance system could consider these results to improve its procedures and update the disease control and management policy, and allow the implementation of targeted or risk-based surveillance.