Assessing the impact of intervention strategies on the multidimensional burden of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae infection in fattening pigs through a stochastic model.

Mycoplasma (M.) hyopneumoniae imposes a substantial burden on pig production, including financial, health, antimicrobial use (AMU), labour, and environmental impacts. However, an integrated assessment of this multidimensional burden and trade-offs between intervention strategies is lacking. The objective of the present study was, therefore, to compare intervention strategies based on their effects on pig health indicators, AMU, margin over feed and intervention costs, labour requirements, and environmental impacts related to feed use. Three intervention strategies were considered: vaccination of piglets at three weeks of age (V), group-level antimicrobial treatment (GT), and individual antimicrobial treatment (IT). A previously developed individual-based stochastic bio-economic simulation model was extended to incorporate effects of V, GT, and IT on epidemiological and production parameters, and to estimate their respective impact on each burden dimension. The interventions were ranked across all burdens, and sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the robustness of the rankings. V consistently ranked as the most effective strategy for reducing clinical disease, AMU, labour, and environmental impact, but was less attractive in terms of financial performance. GT yielded the largest financial benefit and lowest labour demand, but resulted in the highest AMU and showed limited impact on coughing duration, highlighting a clear trade-off between economic efficiency and antimicrobial stewardship. IT resulted in lower AMU and health burden than GT, but required more labour, achieved smaller reductions in the carbon footprint of feed, and generated higher costs. The presented framework provides a novel multidimensional comparison of M. hyopneumoniae intervention strategies and offers a quantitative basis for decision-making under competing objectives.