Canada-U.S. Coordination and Cooperation Key to Defending Against Foreign Animal Disease

The Veterinary Counselor with the Canadian Pork Council says coordination and cooperation among Canadian and U.S. veterinary authorities are key to protecting North America from foreign animal disease."Cross-Border Livestock Health and U.S. Canada Coordination in an Animal Health Emergency" were discussed last month as part of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region Summit in Calgary.

Dr Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counselor for the Canadian Pork Council and a member of the Swine Innovation Porc Coordinated African Swine Fever Research Working Group, says Canada and the U.S. have well respected veterinary authorities that are well organized and science based.

Clip-Dr Egan Brockhoff-Canadian Pork Council:

There's always opportunity to potentially simplify or streamline.That can be done through training, that can be done through tabletop exercises and practice, introducing new technologies to the space to simplify movement control documents, so on and so forth.As we look around the world we continue to see viruses like Foot and Mouth Disease virus move, we continue to see viruses like African Swine Fever virus move.

We now have African Swine Fever in the Caribbean and so how do we protect our North American herd from some of these viruses?To do that we have to have measures in place to mitigate health risks and so control measures for imports, so on and so forth.These are critical steps and so, as we look at the effort both of our countries have put in to keeping disease out, we've done a good job.

Now we just need to continue to practice and rehearse and make sure our traceability systems, our surveillance systems for disease and our biosecurity protocols are strong enough to not just protect the country but also to protect the individual herds.

Dr. Brockhoff says we want to continue to facilitate the free movement of livestock as an economic driver for both countries while guarding against the movement of disease.