Priorities for the Swine Health Information Center in 2026 include containing the spread of New World Screwworm, expanding the understanding of the implications for swine from H5N1 and contributing to the success of the new National Swine Health Strategy. In 2025 the Swine Health Information Center provided just over 4.4 million dollars to swine health research across 32 projects, the largest annual research commitment in its history.As part of its February eNewsletter, the Swine Health Information Center has released its 2025 Progress Report.
SHIC Executive Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says we know the risk of new and emerging diseases throughout the globe is always changing and we want to keep up on any emerging risk and not be caught off guard or unprepared.
Quote-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:
Our role through the Swine Health Information Center is to always stay up to speed on emerging disease threats, to be nimble and responsive to those threats and to serve pork producers. As we think about the Swine Health Information Center's activities in 2026, we know there's going to be a an H5N1 RFP, the second one we just released in January.
It's going to be a big program again this year to generate that prevention, preparedness and response information for H5N1 risk to swine and again look forward to working with our stakeholder partners, our funding partners and the researchers that conduct the work as well as other livestock commodities as H5N1 is a disease that is multispecies just like New World Screwworm. In addition, as we think about 2026, SHIC is really looking forward to being an essential component to a successful National Swine Health Strategy.
This strategy has been led by the National Pork Board and the National Pork Producers Council as well as the state pork associations and is planned for announcement and release at the National Pork Forum in March of 2026.As we look forward to SHIC's role in 2026, we can think about that emerging disease risk and mitigation as part of the National Swine Health Strategy.
SHIC's 2025 Progress report and other swine health information can be found at swinehealth.org.
Source : Farmscape.ca