Farmscape for August 30, 2013

The National Pork Board reports the U.S. experience with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea has uncovered a range of biosecurity issues that need to be addressed.
A Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreak that's been spreading throughout the U.S. since April is showing signs of slowing.
National Pork Board vice president science and technology Dr. Paul Sundberg says the infection has demonstrated the need for better biosecurity.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-National Pork Board:
We have discovered that we need to have better protocols for trucking biosecurity and transport, better protocols within packing plants for biosecurity, even down to IT capabilities and laboratory capabilities to report infections.
There's a number of things that we've discovered that we need to enhance because it has shown us that we do have some issues that have to be resolved.
I have to say that another one is the inclusion of premises identification numbers on diagnostic lab submission forms.
The pin number will identify the location of the farm that the samples are coming from and, with the permission of the producer or the veterinarian that is submitting that then, that can be used for analysis of the epidemiology of PED and other diseases.
That's another example of the things that this has uncovered that we really need to do a better job of as an industry in order to harden ourselves to the introduction and response to PED, to foreign animal diseases and even to endemic diseases that we've been living with for decades.
What we're learning with PED is going to help us in a variety of different ways.

Dr. Sundberg says the focus now is to ensure producers and veterinarians have the information they'll need to deal with this infection.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council