Farms.com Home   News

Disease Prevention Increases in Importance

National Pork Board photo
 
A Professor with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine says the swine sector is placing a greater emphasis on the strategies that will prevent the introduction of diseases onto farms. In light of evolving disease pressures prevention has become a top priority.
 
Dr. John Harding, a Professor with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, notes we have a very complex livestock sector involving multiple sites with large airspaces, transportation of pigs great distances and the emergence of new pathogens, antimicrobial resistance and potential zoonotic diseases.
 
Clip-Dr. John Harding-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:
 
Biosecurity is number one and, whether that's at the herd level or the regional level or at the international level, we certainly need to always keep biosecurity in mind. For instance, keeping African Swine Fever out of the country is clearly a priority of the industry. At the international or the regional level it could be keeping PED out of certain areas of the country or at the farm level it could be keeping PRRS out of an individual herd.
 
But there are other factors as well. Closely related to that is location of the farm. If you want a farm that PRRS or mycoplasma, those diseases that may transmit by aerosol, then locating in an area that there's not a lot of neighboring pig farms will be very important. Other ways to reduce the risk would be certainly source of animals.
 
It traditionally has been one of the main reasons why herds have broken, so whether those are gilts or boars or semen coming in, you always need to evaluate the health status of those animals and put in appropriate measures such as quarantine prior to bringing those animals in. Once farms are infected, there's management tools such as vaccination and medications that can be used to either prevent infection, but likely not. More along the lines of reducing challenge or infection pressure in the individual groups of animals.
Source : Farmscape

Trending Video

Secure Your Pig Herd with AgView | Streamline Disease Defense with Traceability

Video: Secure Your Pig Herd with AgView | Streamline Disease Defense with Traceability

Join Jill Brokaw, a third-generation pig farmer and staff member of the National Pork Board, as she dives into a resource developed by the National Pork Board, paid for with Pork Checkoff funds. AgView is a pivotal tool, enabling swift and efficient responses to potential foreign animal disease outbreaks by allowing producers to securely share location and pig movement data with State Animal Health Officials to rapidly contain the disease threat and determine where the disease is or is not present.

Why Should Pork Producers Care? AgView standardizes and streamlines how America's pig farmers communicate information to animal health officials that supports business continuity in an outbreak. It is an entirely voluntary tool where you continue to own and control your data.

Getting Started with AgView: Getting started is incredibly easy. You can access the platform on any device. Producers can upload data directly to their AgView Account or work with the National Pork Board to connect the platform using an application programming interface or API.

Takeaway: AgView was built to be the path to protection that helps producers and officials respond to a foreign animal disease emergency the minute a threat arises, providing the critical information needed to manage a foreign disease crisis.