Which strategy would condemn the entire herd upon any positive test?

• A. Herd depopulation
• B. Test and remove
• C. Vaccination
• D. Surveillance only

Answer: (A)

This policy exemplifies a stamping-out approach at the herd level: any detected positive triggers destruction of every animal in the herd to stop potential spread. The idea is to prevent transmission from even a single suspected infection, which makes this strategy extremely aggressive and responsive to risk.

But it relies on test accuracy in a critical way. If a positive result occurs, the entire herd is condemned, so the approach is highly sensitive but risks culling many uninfected animals if the test isn’t perfectly specific. In practice, such a policy is used only in high-stakes situations or when confirmatory testing is impractical, because it imposes enormous economic and ethical costs. Other strategies—removing only those that test positive, vaccinating to reduce transmission, or continuing surveillance without depopulation—do not mandate destroying the whole herd after a single positive result.