SHIC Hosts Swine Health Monitoring Project Coordinators for Collaboration

You don’t know what you don’t know. And you don’t always know what your colleagues do know. Because the potential for new, emerging, and foreign animal diseases to affect the US swine herd is an industry-wide concern, the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) recently coordinated a meeting of the project coordinators of independent and voluntary swine health and producer information sharing programs around the country. Hosted by The Ohio State University Veterinary School faculty, the purpose was to discuss successes and challenges of individual programs in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Morrison Swine Health Monitoring Project. Participants shared ways each program could be improved, IT issues, premises ID verification, and a new proposal for giving state animal health officials real-time information that could help in getting movement permits in the face of a high consequence disease outbreaks.

As the meeting unfolded, participants, including representatives of the National Pork Board and American Association of Swine Veterinarians, shared ideas on managing data and IT solutions. They looked at tools available for these tasks and their ability to help producers with the information gathered and shared in the process. Additionally, participants talked about the goals of their programs – short-term as well as three to five years from now. All worked together to identify ways to help each program improve independently and together as resources for pork producers.

Dr. Patrick Webb of the National Pork Board shared updates to the Secure Pork Supply (SPS) program during the gathering. Another topic discussed related to premises ID systems in each state with the need for consistent validation and updating of the information.

Premises identification is the foundation for emergency preparedness. It is absolutely vital pork producers’ premises identification numbers (PIN) are accurate and geo-located to the site where pigs are housed. Since premises registration occurs at the state level, it is important pork producers work with their state animal health official to update premises information annually, or when a change of the site’s ownership occurs, to ensure state premises databases remain as accurate as possible.

Pork producers can validate individual premises and verify addresses using National Pork Board’s premises verification page here or, for up to 100 PINS in a batch upload, here. When a premises identification number is entered, the street address for the site is returned. Producers can then compare the returned street address to what is in their records. If they are not the same, this can be fixed by working with the state animal health official in the state where the premises is located.  If a street address is not returned, at all, it is usually because the PIN was incorrectly entered.

Dr. Maryn Ptaschinski of the Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases talked with the project coordinators about the AgView Program. Supplemental to SPS, the AgView database and dashboard is currently under development to support business continuity in the case of a trade-limiting foreign animal disease of swine. It will allow pork producers participating in the SPS plan to share data in a rapid, efficient, and secure way with state animal health officials. As a result, these officials will have easy-to-use information to accelerate risk-based decision-making for permitting pig movements.

The AgView system will also have the capacity for day-to-day use by producers. It will allow them to consolidate production, movement, and lab data into one location for analysis and decision making. The first release of the AgView system is scheduled for February 2019.

SHIC continues to coordinate with industry partners to provide the best information and resources to pork producers about emerging disease affecting their herd health and livelihood. This meeting connected several independent programs to facilitate their success through sharing best practices and information.

Funded by America’s pork producers to protect and enhance the health of the US swine herd, the Swine Health Information Center focuses its efforts on prevention, preparedness, and response. As a conduit of information and research, SHIC encourages sharing of its publications and research for the benefit of swine health. Forward, reprint, and quote SHIC material freely. For more information, visit https://www.swinehealth.org or contact Dr. Paul Sundberg at [email protected].