!!! Breaking news - update !!!

Dear Challengers, due to the evolving Covid-19 situation that generates a lot of uncertainty on the ability of many of us to work properly for the next few months (and especially as a team!), the organising committee has decided to wait for the public health situation to calm down before launching the ASF challenge.

We still strongly believe that such challenge is immensely valuable for improving our ability to address emerging livestock infectious diseases, but we consider that priorities for most of us have changed temporarily so that postponing the ASF challenge to later this year is sensible. We greatly hope that it would be no later than early July... We have identified options to do it online and thus enable most of you to participate.

Stay safe!

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Welcome to this open modelling challenge! You can follow news on Twitter: @AsfMod

The objective of this challenge is to create a unique and stimulating environment to enhance the ability of modellers to advise policy makers in a timely manner. More specifically, it aims at improving the readiness of modelling teams when facing emerging threats such as African swine fever (ASF) and promote international collaborations.

This challenge is set up by The Coordinators and is organised for The Players. The Coordinators have generated in silico data mimicking an ASF-like epidemic at the interface between pig farms and wild boars in a typical European context. These data will be progressively given to the challenging modelling teams, The Players, while the epidemic develops. Players’ objectives will be to reproduce the observed epidemic assuming a set of intervention strategies, predict its expansion and prioritize a finite number of alternative interventions.

Be aware that any kind of model can be used: previous modelling challenges have demonstrated that simple statistical models can be more useful in some situations than complex mechanistic models!

Above everything, this project is expected be fun and provide an inspiring platform to exchange knowledge and expertise on animal health modelling at the interface between livestock and wildlife.

It will also be a nice opportunity to publish a special issue in a high-impact journal (still to be decided) on our collective experience and results obtained!

Organising team: P. Ezanno (INRA, Oniris, Nantes, France), S. Picault (INRA, Oniris, Nantes, France), and T. Vergne (INRA, ENVT, Toulouse, France) organize the challenge. They are currently producing in silico data mimicking an ASF-like epidemics at large scale. They will then make the useful datasets available to players.

The organising team is receiving immense support from a group of experts composed of E. Gilot-Fromont (VetAgroSup, Lyon, France), E. Baubet, S. Rossi & E. Marboutin (ONCFS, France), and C. Belloc (Oniris, Nantes, France), who have expertise on ASF epidemiology, ASF regulated control in livestock, and ASF regulated control in wildlife. They will be invited to interact with The Players at the end of the challenge.

This project is funded by the Animal Health Division of Inra.