SHIC Webinar to Address HPAI Risk and Risk Mitigation in Swine

The Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center suggests the H5N1 infection of a pig on a multispecies backyard Oregon farm, exposes the need to examine operational connections between farms housing different species.The Swine Health Information Center is hosting a Zoom webinar today, November 20th, at 11:00 am Central entitled "H5N1 Influenza Risk to U.S. Swine” to discuss the implications of the October 30th announcement that high path avian influenza had been confirmed in a pig on a multispecies backyard farm in the United States.

SHIC Executive Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says this webinar will focus on how this affects the risk to U.S. swine and how to mitigate those risks.

Quote-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

One of the aspects of this detection in the Oregon backyard farm is that we have to consider the risk of multispecies operations where, even if the animals are not intended for the food supply there can be spillover of viruses and diseases from one species to another.Certainly, we need to think of that risk and understand that those farms may be at a higher risk for spillover.The other aspect that's really been illuminated with the dairy industry experience over the last seven months is that there are more operational connections between different livestock species operations than previously had been identified.

So, thinking about those operational connections between swine farms and dairy farms, operational connections between swine farms and poultry farms.That may include personnel that go back and forth, that may include equipment, that may include transport vehicles, feed vehicles, supplies, contract crews that may come in and assist with vaccination or loadout.

We need to have more awareness about where those operational connections could be and then put in mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of any spillover from one livestock species to another.

For more information or to register for the webinar visit swinehealth.org and, for those unable to connect live, a link to a recording of the webinar will be posted later to the web site.