Foot and Mouth Disease Resurfaces in Germany

The Swine Health Information Center is encouraging North American pork producers to maintain their focus on biosecurity in the face of new developments related to the global spread of foreign animal diseases. As part of its February eNewsletter the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly global and domestic swine health surveillance reports.

SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton reports, while African Swine Fever remains the dominant global disease threat, there have been new development related to Foot and Mouth Disease.

Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:

African Swine fever continues to be a disease of global impact and so, again, across Europe and Asia and even in the Philippines it's still a significant health challenge for global swine production. We've also noted that Foot and Mouth Disease was recently identified in Germany. This virus has not disappeared from the landscape and still presents a global threat to animal health.

The risks remain relatively the same but I think the identification in Germany shows that the virus is still very active and out there and a lot of times it's going back to looking at what are the basic preventive measures, such as not bringing in any potentially contaminated hides or meat or even clothing, footwear and shoes when coming back to the United States from international travel. Sanitation of vehicles is especially important and we must still have ability to be able to protect our borders and have increased inspection of any potentially concerning items coming in.

Dr. Becton suggests it comes down to controlling the things that you can control on your farm, including implementing sound and solid biosecurity procedures, looking at things like transportation biosecurity and washing as many vehicles as possible between farms, assessing people returning to the farm from overseas, prohibiting bringing meats onto farms and preventive steps such as participation in the Secure Pork Supply Plan, the AgView system for traceability and the U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan. For more visit swinehealth,org or Farmscape.Ca.