The Swine Health Information Center is applauding U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to expand its reporting of efforts to keep African Swine Fever out of North America. African Swine Fever continues to move with new outbreaks confirmed in Indonesia, Bhutan and Thailand, outbreaks in wild boar in Italy and ongoing challenges in the Caribbean.
Dr. Paul Sundberg, the Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center and a member of the Swine Innovation Porc Coordinated African Swine Fever Research Working Group, says U.S. priorities center around prevention, preparedness and response.
Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
We just got a report from Customs and Border Protection about their new reporting of metrics of their activity. One of the things that we asked of them in 2018 when the virus first got into China was how they could help us spread their good news about their good work in keeping that virus out of the country.
This isn't a sprint. This is a long-term marathon and one of the interests is to be able to track Customs and Border Protection activities such that there isn't African Swine Fever fatigue. CBP has reported that they're starting to put those metrics on their web site now so that's an improvement.
And they're also going to be enhancing the metrics that they have on the website and improving that reporting within the next few weeks. It's all about prevention and USDA and Customs and Border Protection for the U.S. are front and center on that line to keep ASF out of the country.
Source : Farmscape