Researchers Evaluate Methods for Decontaminating Feed Mills

Researchers with Kansas State University have launched a research initiative to evaluate various strategies for disinfecting feed mills that have become contaminated with disease causing pathogens. The Institute for Feed Education and Research, the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada, the United Soybean Board and the Swine Health Information Center are collaborating on a research project to evaluate methods for cleaning and disinfecting feed mills in the event of a potential African Swine Fever outbreak.

Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg explains the project, will be conducted by Kansas State University’s Feed Safety Group, using viruses already endemic in the U.S. including Seneca Valley Virus A, PED and PRRS.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

We're going to use those three viruses because we know that they can cause infections through feed transmission. We use those as surrogates for foreign animal diseases, African Swine Fever, Foot and Mouth Disease which we've shown can also be transmitted by feed. We're starting with these endemic pathogens that we can use to test out the systems.

We're going to look at a variety of different ways that we might be able to scrub the facilities, scrub the augers, scrub the conveyer belts mechanically as well as chemically, scrub them with different materials that we can put through the augers, put though the conveyer belts, put through the milling facility to see if we can remove residual feed that may be contaminated and we may be able to flush with different feeds that have different mitigants in them, all with the idea that we can work with these viruses that are endemic in a medium biosecurity facility such that we can use those as a model for ASF, for FMD that we couldn't do on that medium biosecurity facility and we'd have to do in a high biosecurity manner.