USDA-APHIS African Swine Fever Response Plan Outlined During Webinar

USDA-APHIS has outlined its African Swine Fever Response Plan. "USDA’s African Swine Fever Response Plan" was discussed yesterday as part of the fourth in a series of five USDA-APHIS African Swine Fever Action Week Webinars.

Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the Deputy Minister of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's Veterinary Services Program, says in the of event of an outbreak trading partners would likely cut off all trade until control measures could be demonstrated and even then, trade to unaffected regions would be limited.

Clip-Dr. Rosemary Sifford-USDA-APHIS:

We would want to move right away to start taking actions to control and contain any disease as soon as we identify the first case so one of the first actions might be a declaration of an extraordinary emergency. The declaration would allow us to more easily partner with our state partners to be able to put resources toward any kind of control measures that might need to be put into place.

It also helps us access funding more easily and quickly that might be needed to help with any purchases that we might need to make for equipment or for purchasing sick animals. We'd also likely put in place a 72-hour national movement standstill. The movement standstill would give us a good opportunity to understand exactly where the disease is and be able to put control measures in place before animals were moving again.

Any animals or germ plasm that were already in transit would be allowed to go to their destinations but no new movements would be allowed until the movement standstill was released. Then, once it is released, there would likely be controlled movement in certain areas, particularly around the area of infection. During the national movement standstill, we would be working to identify exactly where the disease is located and how we could best control it. That would involve additional surveillance and testing of animals in any areas that we think might have been affected.