April 3, 2023

 

USDA funds 60 projects with US$15.8 million to improve responses to animal diseases

 

 

The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is awarding US$15.8 million to 60 projects led by 38 US states, land-grant universities and industry organisations to enhance the United States' ability to rapidly respond to and control animal disease outbreaks.

 

USDA is awarding this funding through the 2018 Farm Bill's National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP).

 

Funded projects focused on enhancing prevention, preparedness, early detection and rapid response to the most damaging diseases that threaten US livestock. They will help US states develop and practice plans to quickly control disease outbreaks, train responders and producers to perform critical animal disease outbreak response activities, increase producer use of effective and practical biosecurity measures, educate livestock owners on preventing disease and what happens in an outbreak and support animal movement decisions in animal disease outbreaks, among others.

 

Some of the projects funded this year include:

 

    - National Incident Command System Capacity Advancement at the Michigan Department of Agriculture and the Multi-State Partnership for Security in Agriculture;

 

    - On-Demand Training for foreign animal disease diagnosticians for animal disease response at Texas A&M AgriLife Research;

 

    - Extending a between-farm African swine fever transmission model to estimate the necessary number of sample collectors in a highly swine dense region at North Carolina State University;

 

    - Biosecurity Rapid Response Mobile Decontamination/Disinfection Gate for Animal Disease Outbreaks at the Maryland Department of Agriculture;

 

    - Emergency Response Preparedness for Foreign Animal Diseases and Mass Livestock Mortalities at North Dakota State University.

 

- USDA