Table 4 Cost-benefit analysis by veterinarians deciding whether to report abortions and make a differential diagnosis
Factors | Benefits | Costs |
|---|---|---|
Regulations | Professional conscientiousness | Lack of technical justification: a brucellosis outbreak would be detected by a significant abortion episode or by active surveillance |
| Â | Technical justification: brucellosis may cause late abortion (after six months of pregnancy | Â |
Technical | Technical interest in identifying the cause of the abortion | Difficulties in identifying the cause of abortion |
| Â | Â | Lack of knowledge: when veterinarians carried out a differential diagnosis, they included known abortive diseases with a known diagnosis protocol and effective measures to reduce the occurrence of abortions; their diagnosis protocol sometimes differed from scientific requirements. One veterinarian did not report an abortion because he did not know which diseases other than brucellosis to include |
| Â | Â | Low impact of sanitary and medical measures to prevent further abortions due to enzootic diseases |
Financial | Â | The farmer refused to pay additional costs for analyses and sanitary/medical measures to prevent further abortions |
Practical | Â | Time schedule with farmer |
| Â | Â | Lack of time to seek advice about differential diagnosis |