A Red Deer based swine veterinarian says the fledgling Western Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network is a great tool to keep our finger on the pulse of swine health in western Canada.
The Western Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network, established by the pork producer councils in the four western provinces in partnership with the Offices of the Provincial Chief Veterinary Officers to assume responsibility for swine health surveillance in western Canada, is one of three arms focusing on disease monitoring and disease knowledge transfer in Canada.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, with Prairie Swine Health Services, says those three systems are working together with the Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network to protect Canada’s pig herd from new disease, from emerging disease and to help inform people about what’s happening with disease that’s endemic across Canada.
We have the organization up and running and that organization is divided into a number of components.
We have practicing swine veterinarians in western Canada filling out a data survey every time they visit a farm and that’s a very general survey.
They respond to questions about what type of disease did you see.
They don’t give information out specifically about the farm and they don’t share the location of the farm.
It’s just simply what type of observations did you see today in your life as a swine veterinarian.
Then that data feeds into a database in Manitoba Pork’s office every day and gathers information and creates a report system that one veterinarian working for the three western pork boards reviews every day.
Dr. Brockhoff notes swine veterinarians also participate in quarterly on-line surveys, representatives from each of the provinces meet though a conference call to discuss the results and that information is used to produce updates on the state of pig health.
For more information contact your local provincial pork office.
