Illinois Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Joins Six Other VDLs in Domestic Swine Disease Reporting

Swine diagnostic data collected through the Illinois Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory will soon be included in the Swine Health Information Center's monthly domestic swine disease monitoring report along with six other veterinary diagnostic labs. The Swine Health Information Center's December eNewsletter details 12 projects approved under its 2025 Plan of Work.

SHIC Executive Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says the projects address priorities outlined in the plan.

Quote-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

We're really trying to enhance diagnostic capabilities and information that we can provide back to producers. For example, with regards to improving swine health information there will be a new laboratory that's involved in the domestic swine disease monitoring report that we put out through our monthly newsletter.

The Illinois Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory will soon be involved in those monthly reports along with six other VDLs. This represents about 97 percent of the swine samples that are submitted throughout the country.We're trying  to enhance representation to monitor domestic diseases and identify emerging threats.

As we think about the swine disease monitoring reports, we put those out once a  month in our newsletter and those are publicly available. Producers, veterinarians, academics and researchers can understand trends of domestic disease detection.They can understand if there's any enhanced detection regionally or in local states.That information is available to understand risks and how they may be changing.We are also developing new tools, new strategies and new technologies through many of these research projects.

Dr. Niederwerder says the Swine Health Information Center wants to get these tools and strategies into the hands of producers and veterinarians so they can put them to immediate use in reducing the risk of emerging disease in their swine herds.