During Iowa Swine Day I had the chance to attend a talk on biosecurity hosted by Dr. Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt of the University of Montreal. He talked about the common sense approach to biosecurity.
Dr. Vaillancourt opened with something a lot of us may not realize. Biosecurity is not a new practice. It has been going on for centuries and longer. In fact, biosecurity is mentioned in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, in which soldiers were instructed to fire their swords and boil their clothes when returning from a foreign land. The principles of biosecurity haven?t changed, only the technology.
Dr. Vaillancourt says the reason the principles haven?t changed over time is that they are scientifically sound. The biggest threat we have to biosecurity is ourselves. We are the ones who cut corners or forget biosecurity practices altogether. We are the ones who become lax in our practices and suffer the consequences.
According to Dr. Vaillancourt, there are two main principles of biosecurity which serves as the base for everything else. They are reducing contaminants and separating healthy animals from the source of contamination.
Vaillancourt went on to say the third most essential tool in biosecurity is communication. Whether it is communication with your employees, veterinarians, vendors, neighbors, or whoever, it is an essential method to helping prevent an outbreak.
Our practices have changed over the years. Larger herds, closer facilities, and more vendors between sites has increased the disease pressure according to Dr. Vaillancourt. This is not to say this way of doing business is a bad thing, it is economically sound. It just means there must be even more attention paid to biosecurity measures.
Vaillancourt says if you want to see the ultimate amount of disease pressure, go to China and see how they raise their pigs. Hogs are mostly housed in multi-story hog hotels. Their super-close proximity would explain how we saw the rapid spread of African Swine Fever in China. Dr. Vaillancourt says the United States definitely has less disease pressure than China, but he says not to get too excited because it isn?t too much better.
The common thread through the whole talk was a reminder of the fact we need to remain vigilant in our biosecurity measures. Disease prevention begins at home.
