Stop Chasing, Get Out in Front: SHIC Reports on 2020 Progress
Monitoring. Targeted Research. Analysis. The three main charges of the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) haven’t changed throughout the past five years, but the stakes continue to get higher as foreign animal disease threats put increased pressure on the U.S. swine industry.
“We are so laser-focused on swine disease introductions and re-introductions into the country,” says SHIC Board of Directors Chair Daryl Olsen, DVM, AMVC. “When you’re laser focused on one thing, it gives you so much more ability to make decisions. That’s been beneficial. No other organization I know of can be this focused on one task. That’s exciting.”
2020 Highlights
That’s why SHIC executive director Paul Sundberg says one of the highlights of the 2020 Progress Report SHIC has been the monitoring of African swine fever (ASF) movement around the world.
“I believe that SHIC has been very successful in informing people about the about the different disease status and movements around the world. That's probably one of our strong points,” Sundberg says. “China, Southeast Asia, the whole of Asia...that's a hotbed for new swine diseases and our international disease report helps monitor that.”
In addition, the domestic disease report, a collaboration with U.S. veterinary diagnostic labs, is working to uncover emerging issues in in the U.S. pork industry early enough to give everyone a heads up on managing the disease and coordinating a response.
“We don't want something to simmer and all of a sudden boil up,” Sundberg says. “We want to catch it in that simmering phase – if it's going to happen – because it's going to be easier to stop it, manage it and respond to it if it's at a low level.”
The list of targeted research projects SHIC led in 2020 is long, but Sundberg highlighted the efforts in Vietnam where researchers are studying ASF in real time in the midst of an outbreak.
As compared to the porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) outbreak in 2013 that left the U.S. pork industry scrambling to do research to learn how to manage, exclude and respond to this devastating virus, Sundberg says the Vietnam project is allowing researchers to study ASF before the disease gets to the U.S.
Biosecurity has been a major focus of SHIC research lately. SHIC and the National Pork Board, in collaboration with the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV), have funded a project to identify gaps in U.S. pork industry national biosecurity. The goal is to prevent entry of foreign animal disease into the country by addressing those gaps. Among the many areas being considered for study are foreign imports, entry of foreign travelers, domestic transportation of animals, common inputs to U.S. production, domestic market channels, and others.
“The effort there is to make sure that we've identified every window for entry of disease, and we've done our best to close them,” he says.
Biosecurity also includes projects such as using staged loading as a technique for preventing pathogen transfer from trucks back into finishing barns and improving the suggested holding time for feed components that would be long enough to neutralize 99.99% of ASF virus if it were present within that feed.
From an analysis perspective, one of the biggest advancements in 2020 was the development of the model by which producers can predict a PED outbreak two weeks before it happens.
“I've spent my veterinarian career too often chasing diseases, and this gives us an opportunity to get in front of a disease,” Sundberg says. “If we can predict something that's going to happen, then we may be able to prevent it. And if we can prevent it, we aren't going to be chasing it anymore. That's a really big step forward.”
A Look Ahead to 2021
Sundberg says there’s a delicate balance between continuing to do the same thing because it gives you a foundation and pushing the envelope.
“You don’t want to get stuck in a rut,” he says. “I try to get as much input as I can from a wide variety of producers and veterinarians. Because when you get a bunch of smart people together, you can do better than when you're trying to do it by yourself.”
That’s his goal for the 2021 plan of work that he is finishing up now – to trust producer wisdom and build on issues that are important to them as he seeks to determine what SHIC can do better in 2021.
Credit Where Credit is Due
Sundberg says SHIC can’t accomplish all that it does without three important groups: the board of directors, the monitoring and analysis working group and the preparedness response working group.
“When the monitoring and analysis group says we have a problem, the preparedness response group says, ‘Here's what we should do about it.’ Without all of these experts volunteering their time and knowledge, we couldn’t do what we do,” he says.
As the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic, SHIC continues to focus efforts on prevention, preparedness and response to novel and emerging swine disease for the benefit of U.S. swine health.
“In the very short time we’ve been in existence, we have come to play such a vital role in helping defend the health of our industry,” Olsen adds. “I recommend people read the progress report and evaluate our performance. After you’ve read it, you’re going to understand that we have filled a void and been very successful. We’re committed to protecting the U.S. pig population.”
Read the complete report here.
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