Bad Acronym!

Posted on May 14, 2010 by jmsmith

May 14, 2010

Some acronyms are downright ugly.  GLEWS is shorthand for the Global Early Warning and Response System for Major Animal Diseases, Including Zoonoses.  GLEWS supports information sharing on disease alerts being tracked by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), and World Animal Health Organization (OIE–trust me on this one, the translation from French to English is better this way).  In a way, it is an example of a One Health Initiative.

On May 14, 2010, GLEWS posted a very informative overview of the current outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in southeast Asia.  Recent outbreak activity has involved FMD serotype O, which if you recall, was responsible for the FMD outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001.

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FMD in South Korea

Posted on May 11, 2010 by jmsmith

On March 23, it was reported that South Korea had not confirmed a new case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) since the end of January.  On April 9, a beef farm was confirmed to have FMD.  By April 19, FMD had been confirmed in several cattle and swine herds and animals were being depopulated within 3 km (a little less than 2 mi) of the affected farms.

On YouTube you can watch an Al-Jazeera broadcast on the South Korean outbreak that includes themes that will sound familiar to those who have attended the UVM Extension “Prepare to Survive a Bio-Disaster” workshops.

For the latest reports on FMD (and some on the unrelated but similar-sounding Hand, Foot and Mouth disease), check out the Center for Food Security and Public Health website.

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Confirmation of FMD in Japan

Posted on April 22, 2010 by jmsmith

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was confirmed in Japan on April 20, 2010.  The OIE report offers a sobering reminder of the difficulty in rapidly detecting and properly diagnosing foreign animal diseases.  According to the report, the herd veterinarian first reported a suspicious case to the government veterinary service on April 9, but tests for FMD were only ordered after tests for bluetongue, bovine viral diarrhea (BVD), and infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) proved negative on April 19.  Japan has experienced cases of FMD as recently as 2000 and yet the diagnosis of this new outbreak was delayed by 10 days.  How long would it take livestock producers and their veterinarians to make the diagnosis in this country which has not experienced FMD since 1929?  A report from the UK suggests a lapse of 2 weeks or more is common between infection and detection by herd owners (Gibbons JC et al, 2001).

The immediate aftermath for Japanese livestock producers (as would be the case if FMD were diagnosed in the US) was a halt to the international trade of susceptible livestock and livestock products and movement restrictions over a wide area.  On the affected farm, depopulation, disposal, and decontamination commenced shortly after the diagnosis was confirmed.

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Animal Health Emergency Management Tabletop Exercise

Posted on March 16, 2010 by jmsmith
 

Swine committee table top exercise in Kansas City, MO. This picture first appeared in the May issue of NIAA's newsletter, "News and Information for Animal Agriculture"

Being on the lookout for opportunities to mingle with other industry folks engaged in animal disease emergency preparedness, I recently joined the Animal Health Emergency Management Committee of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA).  Committee Co-chairs Patrick Webb of the National Pork Board and Leah Dorman of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation arranged a tabletop exercise for participants at the March 2010 meeting.  Tabletops can be designed in different ways; this one involved an elaborate tabletop model of several livestock facilities and farms adjacent to a state border.  The goal was to engage the industry sectors represented—dairy, beef, and swine—in discussions of how best to respond to maximize continuity of business.  Continuity of business refers to the ability to keep animals fed and animals or animal products headed to market channels within the constraints of the emergency response.  As the scenario unfolded, it dawned on me that the response that dairy farms might favor could be in conflict with the response that swine producers might favor.  Clearly this type of exercise needs to be repeated as various industry groups develop their continuity of business plans to deal with animal disease disasters.

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One Health

Posted on March 16, 2010 by jmsmith

March 16, 2010 One Health The National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) featured “One Health: Implications for Animal Agriculture” as its conference theme this April. “One Health” is the phrase used to describe an approach to health that recognizes the interrelationships between human, animal, and environmental health. The global movements of people, animals, and animal products—both legally and illegally—can carry pests and diseases from one area of the world to another. The close relationship people have with animals around the world, in many cases living in the same quarters (admit it, has your dog or cat ever slept in your bed?), provides the opportunity for inadvertent disease transfer. Unusual weather events and global climate change also foster the introduction and maintenance of disease-carrying vectors such as the midges that carry Bluetongue, also known as pseudo-foot-and-mouth disease. Many of the NIAA conference presentations can be heard through audio feeds on the NIAA website thanks to Truffle Media.

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