dr. A (Aldo) Dekker
Researcher foot-and-mouth disease, swine vesicular disease and vesicular stomatitisfollow_us_label
As project leader vesicular diseases my main task is foot-and-mouth disease, but also swine vesicular disease, vesicular stomatitis and enzootic bovine leucosis are part of my task.
My research focusses on the support of the statutory tasks of our government. For foot-and-mouth disease the focus is on tools that can quickly control an outbreak if FMDV is introduced into the Netherlands.
In the last decades we have focused on quantifying transmission with and without vaccination. Our research has shown that vaccination is an extremely effective tool in the control of foot-and-mouth disease. Our research has led to the adjustment of the national foot-and-mouth disease contingency plan. Evolution of foot-and-mouth disease virus leads to new variants. Our research is focussing on cross-protection against these new variants with foot-and-mouth disease vaccines from our vaccine reserve. We try to set up a relation between laboratory tests and protection, to reduce the use of animals in vaccine studies in the future.