International Collaboration and Cooperation Key to Addressing ASF

The Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council says international cooperation and collaboration have been key in addressing the spread of African Swine Fever. The identification of African Swine Fever in the Dominican Republic has raised the risk for neighbouring Caribbean nations and North and South America.

Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council and a member of the Swine Innovation Porc Coordinated African Swine Fever Research Working Group, says having the virus in the Dominican Republic, which shares an island with Haiti, has heightened concerns.

Clip-Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Canadian Pork Council:

Both the Canadian Government and the U.S. government have reached out with open arms to help the Dominican Republic, to help countries in the region with diagnostics, with epidemiology, with understanding what's needed to control and contain the virus. CFIA has been working very close with USDA-APHIS on this.

The Canadian Pork Council has offered a number of our biosecurity resources for commercial farms. But more importantly all of the work we've done this last year on biosecurity for small holders and backyard pork producers, we've sent all that to the CFIA and they tell us it's all been translated and been sent down and was very well received.

Canada's former Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Jaspinder Komal still works with the OIE's GF-TAD group coordinating an international response to assist the region as well. It's great to see the CFIA and our Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Mary Jane Ireland and the rest of her team helping out. It's great that we, as the pork council, have been able to provide resources that have been found to be useful.