Cooperation Collaboration Key to Addressing ASF

The Chief Veterinarian with the National Pork Producers Council says the effort to address the threat posed by the spread of African Swine Fever in Asia and Europe is an example of how pork sectors stakeholders throughout North American are working together to address disease.

The spread of African Swine Fever throughout Asian and Europe and efforts to prevent its introduction into North America and prepare for an incursion should one occur have been among the topics discussed as part of World Pork Expo underway in Des Moines.

Dr. Liz Wagstrom, the Chief Veterinarian with the National Pork Producers Council, notes pork sector organizations, the United States Department of Agriculture, the North American Meat Institute and several state veterinarians have been meeting weekly to discuss strategies and ensure a consistent approach from state to state.

Clip-Dr. Liz Wagstrom-National Pork Producers Council:

This has truly been a really good example of how North America is working together. We have actually, under the Chief Veterinary Officers of Mexico, the United States and Canada put together a North American Swine Health Working group where the governments and the industries are talking together about how to increase biosecurity of the North American continent, how to harmonize laboratory techniques so that laboratory tests run in one country can be accepted by the other one and then also looking at how we can develop acceptable standards for regionalization of each other's countries so that we could be advanced in our discussions over trade between the North American countries in the event of an outbreak in any one of them.