Warning Tool Could Help Pig Farmers Improve Disease Prevention, Preparedness
A new methodology is being developed to communicate when a swine disease is occurring nearby. Whether an endemic or emerging disease, the goal is to be able to quickly report regional status to producers, allowing them to take precautions to protect their herds, explains Mariana Kikuti, researcher at the University of Minnesota Department of Veterinary Medicine.
Through a Swine Health Information Center (SHIC)-funded effort, staff with the Morrision Swine Health Monitoring Project (MSHMP) are developing ways to increase swine disease prevention and preparedness.
“For example, if a producer’s neighbor tested positive for PRRS, or maybe ASF in the future, they would be notified and able to take necessary precautions,” Kikuti said in a release. However, the benefits extend beyond the producer level as well. “Indirectly, this program may also be able to facilitate the interaction between producers and animal health authorities in the face of an FAD.”
Kikuti and her colleagues said this project is possible because of MSHMP’s primary mission, capturing and analyzing swine health data on a weekly basis from participating farms. Work to take that data and find a useful radius for notifications counting positive sites in a given region is underway, SHIC reports. The program has been tested with one company participating in MSHMP, giving researchers a baseline for continued development, beginning with PRRS monitoring and reporting.
After the project is complete, MSHMP will calculate the distance between a site that has recently reported an outbreak and neighboring MSHMP sites each week. Then, the team will develop a time-sensitive communication system to share regional incidence of disease with participants, to allow the opportunity to put measures for disease prevention in place. In addition, they will automate the analysis to allow for seamless incorporation of the information for participants followed by open enrollment for non-MSHMP participants once the methodology has been established.
After testing the concept, MSHMP decided to bring on a postdoctoral fellow who will be 100% focused on accomplishing the project’s objectives. Xiaomei Yue is an animal health economist with a focus on the production and economic effects of animal disease surveillance programs on herds, SHIC reports. She conducts retrospective and predictive research on disease surveillance programs to provide decision makers with insights into more effective animal disease control programs.
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