May 23, 2007

Unregistered swine sites were cause of Wisconsin's pseudorabies outbreak

The US state of Wisconsin's failed response to a potentially fatal swine disease was due to unregistered sites where animals are kept as required by law, according to state officials.

Rod Nilsestuen, state agriculture secretary said they were grateful that it was not foot-and-mouth disease or avian influenza that has struck the state's livestock farms.

A year and a half ago, Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to require livestock premise registration in a bid to track down animals within 48 hours and help prevent the spread of disease. The state still leads the country in the number of sites listed.

But when swine became infected pseudorabies on two Clark County farms in central Wisconsin, it spent four extra days tracking down unregistered livestock premises within a five-mail radius of the infected farms, said Nilsestuen, secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP). Half of the 62 sites in the area were not registered, he said.

Majority of those who have unregistered premises and received a farm ID number in both the swine and dairy industries are some Amish citing religious reasons, DATCP spokeswoman Donna Gilson said.

Others have opted not to sign up believing it is an "insidious" government program, she said.

Pseudorabies often kills newborn pigs and causes abortion or stillbirth in sows, but usually only causes respiratory symptoms in healthy adult hogs.

The National Animal Identification System said Wisconsin had 57,494 of the 391,884 livestock premises registered nationally as of May 14, more than twice as many as the next three states - Indiana, Pennsylvania and Texas - all of which had 27,000 to 28,000.