SHIC Renews Morrison Swine Health Monitoring Project Funding for 2023-2024

With funding from the Swine Health Information Center renewed for 2023-2024, the Morrison Swine Health Monitoring Project’s industry-driven goals continue to focus on enhancing the health of the US swine herd by providing tools that enable implementation of expanded preparedness measures to address emerging or foreign animal disease emergencies. This includes continuously tracking and analyzing trends in the incidence, prevalence, and elimination of pathogens, sustaining ongoing surveillance of PRRSV sequences impacting the US swine population, enhancing producer engagement, broadening representation of the industry, and facilitating access to timely and relevant disease information.   

In their proposal for funding, the MSHMP team wrote, “Building on our longstanding dedication to the swine industry foreign animal disease preparedness, we remain committed to the development of tools for the industry through collection, analysis, and reporting of data pertaining to endemic disease incidence and eradication endeavors.” In 2023-2024, the team will explore potential inclusion of new pathogen incidence estimations, specifically Senecavirus A, while ensuring the ongoing accuracy and reliability of MSHMP’s data. MSHMP will continue to actively cultivate relationships and facilitate interactions among participants, as well as foster collaborations between participants and research institutions.  

Endemic swine diseases and potential for foreign animal disease introduction pose a risk to the US pork industry. These challenges form the basis for MSHMP’s sustained effort to understand, monitor, and mitigate disease risks. Launched in 2011, MSHMP has made substantial contributions to swine health management in the US by monitoring the health status of individual breeding sites, which collectively represent more than 60% of the US breeding herd. MSHMP has facilitated a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of diseases like PRRS and PED while also uncovering data insights such as spatial and temporal patterns of disease transmission, the molecular evolution of PRRSV, and risk factors associated with disease outbreaks.  

MSHMP’s granular data has allowed for the timely detection and detailed description of newly emerging PRRSVs variants such as the Lineage 1C 1-4-4. And new developments within the project will help shape the industry’s response to ongoing disease challenges. For example, MSHMP’s data increases understanding of the endemic transmission of diseases like PED, offering the industry the opportunity to engage in informed discussions about elimination strategies.  

The Swine Health Information Center, launched in 2015 with Pork Checkoff funding, protects and enhances the health of the US swine herd by minimizing the impact of emerging disease threats through preparedness, coordinated communications, global disease monitoring, analysis of swine health data, and targeted research investments. As a conduit of information and research, SHIC encourages sharing of its publications and research. Forward, reprint, and quote SHIC material freely. For more information, visit http://www.swinehealth.org or contact Dr. Paul Sundberg at [email protected] or Dr. Megan Niederwerder at [email protected].