The Swine Health Information Center has funded a dozen new projects to address its research priorities. SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton said the U.S. is not dealing with any foreign animal diseases at this time so much of the focus is on endemic diseases, like PRRS and PEDV. Research priorities include the preparedness and response to emerging diseases and mitigating risks to swine health. “One of those projects is really looking at harvest plant dock; how can we reduce the amount of disease present and contamination that happens when pigs get unloaded at a packing plant, and when trailers go back to the farm to pick up another load. We’ve got a group working on that out of Minnesota to assess what interventions could be done to help reduce that cross-contamination.”
