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APHIS announces action plan to prep for livestock diseases
By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent
 
DES MOINES, Iowa — The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) Veterinary Services unveiled a new Emerging Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Plan in July designed to detect and respond to “emerging” animal diseases.
 
The action plan defines the processes APHIS will use to identify, evaluate and respond to emerging animal diseases. Examples of emerging U.S. animal diseases over the past two decades include porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, infectious salmon anemia, West Nile virus and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

Representatives of the National Pork Board (NPB), Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) and the U.S. Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) Cross-Species Team say they are fully on board with the national action plan, which includes feedback from federal and state agencies, veterinarians, livestock groups and individuals.

“The plan absolutely dovetails with the response planning at state levels,” said Cindy Cunningham, vice president of communications for the NPB and a coordinator for the FMD Cross-Species Team. “It is critical to have the response planning coordinate at the state and federal level.

“The updates to the plan are based on situations we have seen over the last few years and APHIS, state governments and industry are all working together to ensure that the preparedness is what’s appropriate for our producers and will most help our producers in the event of a disease.”

The action plan provides APHIS’ Veterinary Services with strategic direction to detect and respond to emerging diseases, but is not limited to a single process to fit all emerging diseases, according to the USDA. It describes the need for communication and collaboration among APHIS, state animal health officials and industry associations and stakeholders to effectively detect and respond to emerging animal diseases.

The one-process-doesn’t-fit-all theme is something that has been clearly understood by SHIC, which is described as a “risk identification unit” for swine diseases by Dr. Patrick Webb, DVM, director of the swine health board for NPB and Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “In essence SHIC functions as the eyes and the ears for the next emerging disease of swine. The USDA also has a risk identification unit that acts similarly; however, they deal with all the species that they regulate,” Webb said. “Their plan outlines how they monitor, assess and respond.

“In the case of the pork industry we also have an emerging disease response plan that was developed cooperatively with USDA. This plan outlines the response to a disease of concern, which could include bringing together the swine disease response council to get state/federal/industry recommendations about possible responses to emerging diseases.”

The FMD Cross-Species Team includes representatives of the beef, dairy, pork and lamb industries. Members meet via conference call monthly and in-person on a quarterly basis. “Our goal is to ensure our species-specific responses are able to intertwine across species in the event of a disease outbreak that would impact all of us, such as FMD,” explained Cunningham. “We are all working together so we can rapidly respond to the disease, protect our producers and the U.S. herd that would be affected by the disease.

“We work singularly to help producers understand what their farm-level crisis response plans should be.”

APHIS’ identification of emerging animal diseases does not include FMD, as it has not come to the shores of the United States – yet. However, a key tenet of the plan is to stay informed and updated on animal diseases outside the U.S. that could cause animal or public health concerns or impact trade, and prepare for them.

SHIC has taken on the responsibility for developing a prioritized list of both endemic, or native, and foreign swine pathogens that can be accessed online at www.swinehealth.org/swine-disease-matrix 
8/23/2017