June 6, 2023

 

US university's swine disease reporting system to expand

 

In a pioneering effort to enhance swine health, a team led by faculty from Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine plans to delve deeper into their vast data set by leveraging a grant from the US Swine Health Information Centre, National Hog Farmer reported.

 

The team aims to gain further insights from the Swine Disease Reporting System (SDRS), which collects and analyses pathogen testing results from large public veterinary laboratories across the US Midwest region.

 

Established six years ago by Daniel Linhares, associate professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine, and Roy A Schultz, Professor in Swine Medicine, the SDRS compiles testing data to detect emerging disease trends.

 

By providing producers with an early warning system, it enables them to implement preventative measures such as increased monitoring and heightened biosecurity protocols.

 

Initially, the initiative involved labs at Iowa State and the University of Minnesota, focusing on one pathogen. Over time, the consortium expanded to include five members, including the state-run lab in Ohio, South Dakota State University, and Kansas State University.

 

Currently, the SDRS tracks seven pathogens, categorising the data by location, age, farm type, and specimen type. The information, which remains anonymous to protect producers' and labs' identities, facilitates the identification of macro trends.

 

Monthly data and analysis are shared through an online dashboard and a podcast hosted by Linhares and Giovani Trevisan, a research assistant professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine at Iowa State.

 

The SDRS receives operational funding from SHIC, an industry organisation funded by Pork Checkoff, and publishes a monthly report and newsletter containing the data. SHIC Executive Director Paul Sundberg said that SDRS manages over 96% of US swine diagnostic testing, making their aggregated data invaluable to the industry.

 

Given the nearly 73 million in total swine in the US, the testing data collected by the SDRS is extensive. In 2022 alone, the system recorded more than 530,000 individual results. The SDRS team and collaborators have received a new three-year, US$1 million grant from the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to further leverage on this information.

 

The NIFA funding will enable the team to conduct advanced genetic analysis, identifying new variations of pathogens as they emerge. Trevisan said that that this effort will leverage one of the largest known private collections of genetic disease data, providing even earlier warnings about new swine health risks.

 

-      National Hog Farmer