SHIC Outlines Lessons Learned through Standardized Outbreak Investigation Program

A program introduced in 2021 is helping swine producers and veterinarians investigate disease outbreaks on their farms and formulate strategies to guard against future outbreaks. An article circulated through the Swine Health Information Center's January eNewsletter looks at lessons learned from SHIC's Standardized Outbreak Investigation Program.

Swine Health Information Center Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton explains the program is utilized by swine veterinarians and their producers through a web-based application or a paper-based format available at the web site as they investigate outbreaks experienced on their farms.

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

When we look at different hazards a lot of movements that are routine and happen with a high degree of frequency such as employees entering and exiting a farm or even feed trucks coming on and off the farm or transportation, all are considered as high risk because of the frequency. We also do know that some do carry a higher risk of potential for causing a disease outbreak.

It is important too to know that there are some generalizations such as how well biosecurity is executed on farm and that seems sometimes to be a challenge.
The knowledge of the farm and different procedures, such as repairs or supply entry also are sometimes a concern when not all employees know what the protocol should be. Sometimes there's no future planning or preparedness if a farm breaks and a lot of times monitoring may or may not happen on the farm. When all of these things are taken together when assessing an outbreak, they do tend to rise as something consistent that was identified when looking at the breadth of information collected from the program. The main goal really is to strengthen and improve the herd health of the farm and be better prepared and prevent any potential future disease outbreak.

Dr. Becton notes aggregated information can also be utilized by the industry to help learn from these outbreaks and identify areas that are known and risks that might not have been thought about. Information on the Standardized Outbreak Investigation Program can be accessed at swinehhealth.org.