A Race To Get In Front Of African Swine Fever
As African swine fever (ASF) rages in Vietnam, the U.S. pork industry, through a $1.7 million USDA Foreign Agricultural Service grant, is learning more about this deadly virus from what pork producers in Vietnam are facing now.
The Swine Health Information Center’s (SHIC) Vietnam project is studying ASF in real time as the disease breaks on farms across the country. With the National Pork Producers Council’s (NPPC) help, SHIC obtained a grant with a two-fold mission to help with education, webinars, meetings and outreach information about ASF in Vietnam and to conduct field projects to learn valuable lessons about how this virus spreads.
Getting Ahead Of The Virus
“With ASF, we've got an opportunity in Vietnam to not chase it, but get in front of it and learn the lessons about all of those things with management control, epidemiology, etc., before it gets here,” explained Paul Sundberg, executive director of SHIC, during a SHIC Talk podcast.
Not only is it a good opportunity for the U.S. to learn more this virus in an effort to help pork producers in the case of an outbreak, but it is also helping the U.S. prevent ASF from entering its borders, explained Liz Wagstrom, DVM, NPPC’s chief veterinarian.
The National Pork Board is also getting involved in this project through the research funds, said David Pyburn, DVM, National Pork Board’s chief veterinarian.
“What a great opportunity to further producer Checkoff dollars by joining in with SHIC and the work they're doing in Vietnam,” Pyburn said. “We've got a natural laboratory, if you will, over there where they've got infection occurring in barns that are similar to ours and farm structures that are similar to ours.”
The podcast’s host, Barb Determan, asked an important question. If we are going to prevent ASF, why invest in this research?
“When we start to take an assessment of the risks to our country – and the way that this virus can move in pigs, in product, or potentially in contaminated footwear, clothing, or other objects – we feel like this is really a risk for our country for our industry,” Pyburn said. “It's something that we need to address. We've got to be ready for it when it gets here so that we can act quickly.”
The Eastern European ASF outbreak has mostly been an outbreak in wild boar/feral pigs and has not really affected a lot of commercial production, Wagstrom added. But, in Asia, it's a totally different story, largely affecting commercial pork production.
“I think having the opportunity to be in those commercial facilities to look at things like partial depopulation or methods for appropriately being able to clean and disinfect so you can repopulate successfully...all of those are strategies we're going to need if we were to ever get a case of African swine fever,” Wagstrom says. “For all three of our organizations, our top priority is prevention. But we can't overlook preparedness and pretend and not accept that we may not be 100% successful in prevention.”
If Or When?
Pyburn said he wants the answer to be “if” and not “when” when it comes to the question of will the U.S. get ASF someday?
“But let’s be honest with ourselves. Look at the number of these countries where this virus is currently active in pigs,” Pyburn said. “They’re not going to eradicate it. They’re going to live with this for decades probably, in some of these countries.”
If these countries aren’t successful in getting rid of ASF, the risk will continue to threaten the U.S. pork industry. And no one wants to see this in our pigs, Pyburn added.
“It’s just about as ugly as you can get on a farm, looking at how it will probably affect our naïve pigs,” Pyburn said.
Lessons Learned from COVID-19
Surveillance and testing will be critical in efforts to prepare for and prevent ASF. Wagstrom said many lessons were learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We're nine months into an outbreak and they're still struggling with what testing means, how to get people tested, how accurate are some of their tests, etc. It would be criminal for us not to have a surveillance scheme set up and have the appropriate tests when we know what pathogen we're dealing with,” Wagstrom said.
COVID-19 was a brand-new pathogen, so the Department of Public Health didn't have a test. But the U.S. pork industry has the luxury of knowing what it is worried about – African swine fever, Wagstrom explained. Now, the industry needs to keep expanding its test types.
NPPC continues to work closely with USDA and the state animal health officials trying to put together surveillance schemes before an outbreak occurs.
Another lesson learned from the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 is that the pork industry needs to do more work in the area of depopulation and disposal.
“We didn't have the resources in place to be ready to have a large-scale depopulation effort, and that comes back to industry, states and federal government,” Pyburn said. “We need to make sure we've got a plan, and not only a plan, but also the resources to fulfill that plan and get it done in a timely manner on our farms so that we don't run into welfare issues.”
Are We Ready?
The Vietnam project is allowing researchers to experience ASF in an actual production setting in an outbreak. Pyburn said being able to learn from what Vietnam does, what they don’t do, and how they handle this situation is clearly going to help the U.S. advance its knowledge base on this virus.
Sundberg said he often gets asked, “Well, are we ready?”
His response? “You're never ready for a disease like ASF. But you're way more ready than you were last week. And way more ready last week than you were the week before that.”
Listen to the full podcast and learn more about specific projects taking place in Vietnam here.
More from Farm Journal's PORK:
Keep Your Eyes on African Swine Fever
U.S. Pork Outlook: Will 2021 Be Different?
How Do We Build a More Resilient Supply Chain?
It’s Anyone’s Game: How Will the U.S. Pork Industry Diversify Pork Exports?
