Farmscape for June 1, 2023
Swine practitioners are being encouraged to use the Swine Health Information Center's Diagnostic Fee Support program when they encounter swine diseases for which diagnostic tests have been inconclusive.
The Swine Health Information Center's Diagnostic Fee Support program was created to ensure emerging diseases are identified before they get out of control.
SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says the program supports follow-up diagnostics in cases were initial diagnostics have provided unsatisfactory results.
Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
We know from being in practice and from hearing from practitioners that there are situations where they get a diagnostic report back and they look at it and they say "yes, but that's not right," or maybe the diagnostic report said "this is what we looked for but we didn't find anything."
That doesn't happen very often but it does happen.
Then there are the cases where a producer spends money on diagnostics, especially in growing and finishing pigs and maybe that diagnostic effort wasn't successful and they say "I just don't think we want to spend more money on this."
In both those cases, there's an opportunity for something to emerge, for something new to happen and, if we don't follow up on those, it's an opportunity then for that something new that's happening to get away, to get out, to get into the countryside, not just on one farm but on multiple farms.
That's the purpose for this program.
It's to support further diagnostics in those cases where the initial diagnostics have been done but they are not satisfactory for what ever reason.
SHIC offers further diagnostic support to make sure that we don't miss an emerging disease because of economics or the ability to keep following something that we should be looking at.
Details of the program and application forms can be accessed through SHIC's web site at swinehealth.org.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers