Despite the many advances throughout the years, influenza still cannot be fully controlled and represents a major economic threat to the swine industry. Therefore, we can never discuss it enough and it’s never too late to tackle this challenge. In this podcast host Laura Greiner and guests Dr. Jeremy Pittman and Dr. Marie Culhane have a roundtable conversation about the latest updates about influenza, diagnostics and surveillance, and key strategies to manage those.
Continue reading “Influenza in swine: the latest updates – A podcast episode”Tag: surveillance
Enhanced Passive Surveillance for ASF and CSF
This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.
This week, the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Minnesota shares preliminary results regarding a project looking at enhanced surveillance for two Foreign Animal Diseases: African Swine Fever and Classical Swine Fever.
Continue reading “Enhanced Passive Surveillance for ASF and CSF”There is a Need for National Influenza Surveillance in Swine
In today’s post, we would like to highlight the value of flu surveillance in swine as well as to acknowledge the University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (UMN-VDL) as a long-standing and committed contributor to the USDA Voluntary Influenza A Virus (IAV) in Swine Surveillance program. Thanks to this surveillance program, the U.S. swine industry has ample information available for analysis and to support influenza-related research, vaccinology and diagnostics.
The objectives of the USDA Voluntary IAV in Swine Surveillance program are:
- Monitor genetic evolution of endemic influenza in swine to better understand endemic and emerging influenza virus ecology.
- Make available influenza isolates for research and to establish an objective database for genetic analysis of these isolates and related information.
- Select proper isolates for the development of relevant diagnostic reagents, updating diagnostic assays, and vaccine seedstock products.
Comparison of individual, group and environmental sampling strategies to conduct influenza surveillance in pigs
In this new scientific publication from Dr. Jorge Garrido, PhD candidate from the Torremorell lab, numerous sampling strategies to monitor influenza were compared. the following individual, litter, and environmental samples were included in the study:
- Nasal swabs
- Nasal wipes
- Oropharyngeal swabs
- Oral fluids
- Surface wipes
- Udder wipes
- Airborne particle deposition
- Air
Swine Influenza virus A: podcast 2/3
Podcasts are perfect for summer! We are presenting you with a new series on swine influenza from “At The Meeting… Honoring Dr. Bob Morrison in collaboration with SwineCast.
If you missed it, click here to listen to the first episode from last week.
In this second episode, Dr. Montserrat Torremorell, Dr. Adam Schelkopf (Pipestone Veterinary Services), Dr. Gordon Spronk (Pipestone Veterinary Services), and Dr. Tom Wetzell (Boehringer Ingelheim) continue the conversation on the challenges of IAV-S in day to day operation, the approaches to identifying infected pigs, and the processes that need to be put in place to reduce infection and increase survivability of pigs.