Somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, an epidemic has struck; for the first time in its history, the mythical Island of Merry is experiencing an outbreak of African swine fever virus (ASFV), the pathogen responsible for African swine fever (ASF), a highly contagious and lethal disease capable of infecting all swine. In this work, we investigated the dynamics of ASFV transmission between wild boar (found mainly in forested areas of the island) and pig herds (reared commercially or in backyards) in order to inform evidence-based decisions on control strategies. We modelled ASFV transmission on Merry Island using a model combining a mechanistic, stochastic (with random events), metapopulation, compartment-based Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) model for pig herds and a stochastic Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model with an exponential spatial transmission kernel for wild boar.

I will begin the talk by giving a brief overview of key features of the Island relevant to transmission dynamics. Then, I will describe the model structures and how Approximate Bayesian Computation was employed for parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification in this context. Lastly, I will present some results from our model and discuss potential considerations for model improvement.