NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RFD-TV) — The National Pork Board (NPB) stated that it is monitoring multiple diseases, including African swine fever, and provided an overview of the threat posed by African Swine Fever, as well as its industry’s efforts to ensure the safety of U.S. pork.
“The industry is really focused on all foreign animal disease preparedness, including African swine fever, classical swine fever, and foot and mouth disease,” explained Dr. Meredith Peterson, NPB Director of Swine Health. “The three foreign animal diseases we have in pigs are not currently in the United States. It’s really important for our industry and for our producers that we do everything we can to prevent them from coming to the United States, and then also prepare for if that were to happen. And African swine fever has been a particular focus for the industry, as it was detected on the island of Hispaniola, so the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a few years back.”
Petersen says African swine fever is closer to the U.S. border than it has been in some time, so preparation is vital.
“That’s much closer than it had ever been in the recent past, and so that kind of caused us to increase our preparedness efforts,” said Dr. Peterson. “And so, you’ll see that a lot of the work the industry has done in the last several years has been focused on reducing the risk of African swine fever entry into the country. Specifically with Pork Board work, we’ve done a lot of work developing some programs to help producers be prepared, one of which is the secure pork supply plan, which helps producers prepare for maintaining business continuity. And then another is AgView, which is a program that allows for traceability and easy access for state animal health officials to see where pigs are moving, which is really important in an FAD outbreak.”
Petersen states that African swine fever is endemic on the island of Hispaniola, encompassing both the Dominican Republic.
