U.S. Continues to Take Steps to Keep African Swine Fever Out
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The U.S. is continuing to take steps to keep African swine fever out of the country. USDA recently announced that it has approved blood swabs and spots as official African swine fever (ASF) testing tissues.
“Experts say they are important additions to other samples that have been previously approved,” reports AgDay TV’s Clinton Griffiths.
Paul Sundberg, executive director of the Swine Health Information Center, says more work needs to be done to fully integrate these new samples into the active surveillance program, as well as the ASF Red Book.
The Search for Answers Continues
ASF is the most challenging virus to infect a pig that there is, Sundberg said in June. After the initial outbreak of ASF in China in 2018, the world has learned many hard lessons about this disease. He’s optimistic about the research taking place in Vietnam now looking at ASF in real time in real pig herds.
“One of the things we're doing in Vietnam, with a grant from the USDA Foreign Ag Service, is looking at the biosecurity issues on farms that look just like those in the U.S., and trying to figure out pathways of entry, how to control and what to do to keep it off the farm,” Sundberg says. “It's a benefit to Vietnam and it's a benefit to us, because we want to learn those lessons before we get infected if we do.”
The search for answers for this deadly virus continues. Biosecurity remains critical to keep this disease out of U.S. swine herds.
“We don't have answers for it. So it's just a matter of doing everything we can to keep it out of as many herds as we can throughout the world,” said Farm Journal’s PORK editor Jennifer Shike.
Read More:
It’s Time to Close Every Window to Keep the U.S. Swine Herd Safe
