The Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) is for the enhancement of swine health and to protect them from emerging diseases through preparedness, disease monitoring, communications, and targeted research. Oklahoma Farm Report’s Maci Carter spoke with Dr. Lisa Becton, the organization’s Associate Director, to get the details.
Currently, the Center is researching H5-N1 and Weaned-to-Harvest Biosecurity.
Dr. Becton commented on the amount of activity seen from H5-N1 and how it took the industry by surprise when it was identified in dairy herds for the first time.
“We were watching it with poultry, but when it came over into the dairy side, it really raised some eyebrows,” she said. “Then when USDA first broke the case about the first pig diagnosis in that Oregon farm, it also raised some concerns.”
She described the Oregon farm incident as a unique case because it only affected one pig in a small backyard farm without the pig going into the food production cycle.
“What we are trying to understand now, is what the continued risks for swine are,” she detailed. “Not a whole lot is known about H5-N1 in pigs. We are trying to take lessons learned from dairy, but as we monitored the situation, we felt like we needed to dive deeper and support our industry. That is what led to our call for research proposals.”
The research is helping Dr. Becton and her colleagues understand what the clinical presentation of H5-N1 in pigs is, the level of risk for and mode of transmission, how to protect caretakers, and whether or not vaccinations will help.
Dr. Bection added, “There are ten different priorities, and they are all incorporated into the research, but at the end of the day, the results will help us understand the virus and be able to prevent but also prepare for it if it is ever found in the herds, which we hope never happens.”
The Wean-to-Harvest biosecurity program was developed in collaboration with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) and the Pork Board Checkoff, all of which are also working together on the H5-N1 research efforts. The program focuses on ways to support biosecurity both on the farm and off the farm during transportation to protect swine from disease sand prevent the spread of diseases should they be found.
The Wean-to-Harvest program isn’t new, and research projects are reaching maturity. “Recently, we have highlighted the results of several of those,” Dr. Becton stated. “Some dealing with transportation and some on-farm with our goal being to get usable information to producers.”
She used examples within the transportation industry. Swabbing to check the cleanness of a trailer and the practicality of re-routing trucks around areas known to have active disease are some of the areas of research.
On-farm research is looking for alternatives to caretakers needing to shower going in and out of holding facilities, and the potential risks of manure applications.
Used together, all of these protocols enhance and protect the health of U.S. swine herds and their caretakers by identifying emerging disease threats.
“We know H5-N1 is an emerging threat because it was never seen in swine or dairy until this year,” Dr. Becton said. “So, all of these things, and the research projects that we are doing look at different risk factors for diseases and help us come up with what we can do to prevent some of those infections from happening and ways to monitor for those, whether through diagnostics, having a broader, global surveillance, or even domestic disease surveillance. All of these things fit together to help us protect herd health and drive some of the steps producers can take on the farm to prevent diseases from coming in.”
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