By DOUG SCHMITZ

Iowa Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa — In a proactive effort to stave off future disease threats from entering the United States, the new National Swine Health Information Center will debut sometime this summer, the National Pork Board (NPB) announced at the 2015 National Pork Industry Forum March 5-7 in San Antonio.

“The experience of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) is offering us many lessons,” Paul Sundberg, NPB veterinarian and vice president of science and technology, told attendees. “How the virus got into the United States was one of the first questions asked. We still don’t have the answer.

“But we have learned that the logistics of today’s pork production is so large that the likelihood of being able to protect against the entry of another disease is, at best, extremely small.”

He noted “international travel has dramatically increased, and pork producers import a wide variety of inputs onto their farms. We have to be better prepared for more of these types of production diseases getting into the United States.”

Funded by a $15 million investment from the pork checkoff in Des Moines over the next five years, the center’s board members will represent the NPB and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), both in Des Moines, the American Assoc. of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) based in Perry, Iowa, and at-large U.S. pork producers.

“It’s our intention to establish a center that can improve our preparedness for swine diseases with the combined resources of swine veterinarians, producers, researchers, diagnosticians and state and federal animal health officials,” Sundberg said last November when funding was approved for the center, which will be housed at the NPB.

“And, to be clear, the center will be its own, separate corporation. Although initially funded with checkoff supplemental funds, it also will look for other funding. At the end of that time, the center will either sunset, or it will have demonstrated enough return on that investment to look for additional sources of funding.”

He explained the proposed new center would work toward recognizing and filling the resource and knowledge gaps in swine disease diagnostics as they relate to emerging diseases. Dale Norton, NPB president and Bronson, Mich., producer, said the center would also be working with the Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases at Texas A&M University to help facilitate swine health data analysis.

“Although this is a one-time allocation of supplemental funds outside of our regular budget, we realize that this is an investment in the future of the U.S. pork industry,” he added.

The center won’t be specifically responsible for a disease response plan nor will it duplicate current AASV, NPPC or NPB efforts, Sundberg said, adding the USDA oversees and manages classical foreign animal diseases, such as foot-and-mouth, that already have a preparedness plan in place. He said the center has three goals – the first of which is to monitor foreign and endemic disease risks and vulnerabilities.

“It will gather and coordinate swine disease risk information from a variety of private, company and government resources, and will inform producers of emerging swine disease risks, helping them be better prepared,” he added. “The center also will focus research resources.”

Second, the center will fund and manage research needed to improve diagnostic capabilities to detect emerging production diseases.

“The research will help fill diagnostic and information gaps identified by global monitoring,” Sundberg said. “And, as diseases change and priorities change, the center will ensure the right focus on the highest-risk diseases.”

Third, the center will use new technology without the need to capture producer information into a separate database, supporting epidemiological analysis of diseases that will help improve swine health on the farm.

“This also will give producers the information they need to help make decisions on their farms that will affect biosecurity and biocontainment,” Sundberg said.

Ron Birkenholz, director of communications for the Iowa Pork Producers Assoc. (IPPA) in Clive, said the center will be a welcome addition to established efforts to stop the introduction of new swine diseases that can harm producers and the industry.

“The pork industry has not previously had any type of organization with a singular focus on disease prevention,” he added, “so it’s (the IPPA’s) hope that the center can work with state and federal officials to effectively and efficiently prevent the introduction of foreign animal diseases in the future.”