The Manager of the Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network (CWSHIN) is encouraging Canadian pork producers to request African Swine Fever rule out testing when they see possible symptoms of the infection.
CanSpotASF, part of Canada’s African Swine Fever surveillance, allows veterinarians to direct cases where symptoms are similar to those of African Swine Fever for follow up testing.
CWSHIN Manager Dr. Jette Christensen notes several eligible conditions were identified in the region during the fourth quarter of 2021 and were discussed among practitioners during their quarterly conference call.
The region is still doing good. We have tested 86 percent of the eligible cases that were seen at the pathology laboratories in the region. We have tested 27 percent of all pathology cases no matter what their diagnosis were. Of course, all of these tests that have been done for African Swine Fever, they were all negative.
A note for both producers but also for practitioners is that some of the diseases that we discussed this quarter, sow mortality, torsions, erysipelas we discussed very briefly. They are all conditions that are eligible for ASF rule out testing so that means that these diseases could mask the very early occurrence of ASF should it enter your herd. That’s why we want to have as many of these cases tested for ASF as a rule out diagnosis in order to be sure that we detect ASF as soon as possible should it ever come into Canada.
~ Dr. Jette Christensen, Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network
Dr. Christensen says the encouragement is for producers to ask their practitioners to request ASF rule out testing if they see any of these diseases. She says that would help the pathologists at the laboratories make sure they get all of the cases tested that could be eligible.
