Abstract
LSD is an important transboundary disease affecting the cattle industry worldwide. The objectives of this study were to determine trends and significant change points, and to forecast the number of LSD outbreak reports in Africa, Europe, and Asia. LSD outbreak report data (January 2005 to January 2022) from the World Organization for Animal Health were analyzed. We determined statistically significant change points in the data using binary segmentation, and forecast the number of LSD reports using auto-regressive moving average (ARIMA) and neural network auto-regressive (NNAR) models. Four significant change points were identified for each continent. The year between the third and fourth change points (2016-2019) in the African data was the period with the highest mean of number of LSD reports. All change points of LSD outbreaks in Europe corresponded with massive outbreaks during 2015-2017. Asia had the highest number of LSD reports in 2019 after the third detected change point in 2018. For the next three years (2022-2024), both ARIMA and NNAR forecast a rise in the number of LSD reports in Africa and a steady number in Europe. However, ARIMA predicts a stable number of outbreaks in Asia, whereas NNAR predicts an increase in 2023-2024. This study provides information that contributes to a better understanding of the epidemiology of LSD.