It’s sort of like the DEW line, the distant early warning system established during the Cold War to alert North America about approaching dangers.
However, this early warning system is designed to warn hog producers and others in the industry about swine health issues that might affect their operations and export trade.
The Canada-West Swine Health Intelligence Network is just over one year old. The non-profit organization involves the pork boards from each western province, swine veterinarians, producer groups and provincial veterinary officers.
“What’s the value proposition here for producers? Number one, it’s supposed to be an early warning system. It’s the smoke detector to identify when something’s changing,” said Dr. Chris Byra, manager of the network.
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“A lot of surveillance is going on … for specific diseases that are known risks and so on but there really hasn’t been anybody gathering information in a broad way on production limiting diseases like strep suis or rotavirus or influenza or lawsonia ileitis, for example.”
Byra told those at an Aug. 24 news conference organized by Alberta Pork that the need for better communication among those in the swine industry became apparent in the mid-2000s when circovirus became a problem and wasn’t quickly identified as a serious health issue.
Via the network, swine veterinarians fill out a confidential survey based on observations in operations they visit. They are asked to record health issues they see and whether there is an increase or decrease in diseases and illnesses.
Byra said the last survey included data from 24 veterinarians, many of them representing large practices and large hog farms. He estimated data was collected on about 500,000 sows and six million growing pigs, so it does cover a large part of the western Canadian industry.
“The value of the whole exercise is that we have a measure of what’s changing in real time from a large number of practices, enough to represent the industry, and that’s our goal at this point,” said Byra.
Researchers and pathologists in the swine field also provide input and participate in quarterly meetings when swine health is discussed.
Dr. Frank Marshall, a veterinarian with Marshall Swine Health Services, said the network and meetings provide useful information on prevalent health issues.
“It gives us an early warning indicator of what’s in the pipeline, what people should be looking at, and it allows us to exchange the clinical perspective of what we’ve seen and starts the gears working for everybody that’s on that call,” said Marshall.
“It’s extremely timely and useful for us on a day to day basis.”
A report containing technical information is prepared each quarter for veterinary use. A second report is prepared for swine producers, which they can access through their provincial swine organizations.
Byra said the collected data also allows Western Canada to prove herd health information to international buyers of pigs and pork.
The next quarterly report will be issued shortly, said Byra. The report from April to June 2016 updated producers on the status of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus on Manitoba farms.
It said the three farms that broke with PED in May and June “are well on their way to clearing the virus. One sow barn has exported its first PED-free load of piglets in the last week of July, and the finisher barn is now presumed to be negative.”
The report also warned producers about the potential for myco-toxins in feed because of this growing season’s wet weather in some regions.
