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The Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network allows swine veterinarians to share information on disease issues developing in their regions and has been collecting data for just over a year.
CSHIN manager Dr. Chris Byra told those on hand this week in Saskatoon for Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2013 initiatives are in the works to make it easier for veterinarians to submit data.
"At the moment we're getting an average of about 80 submissions a week. Those are coming from 17 veterinary practices that have about 35 veterinarians working for them. That represents close to half of the veterinarians in Canada that work exclusively or almost exclusively with swine.
The same practices represent probably 40 percent of production in Canada. The integrated companies represent 60 percent and at this point only one of them is submitting data on a regular basis so in total today we probably can speak for about 20 percent of the pigs in the country.
The level of participation gives us a greater ability to have confidence in the reports coming out of the network. At this point the reports that we're able to develop from the data that's coming in ask a lot of interesting questions. We see an increase in Streptococcus suis or at least a high level. We've seen an increase recently of Circovirus disease.
We don't have enough confidence in what we're finding in the data to say absolutely that's what's happening but it certainly asks the questions and we can then research into that. At a point where we have say 75 or 80 percent of Canadian production in it we can say a lot more about the disease and the prevalence of the diseases."
Dr. Byra says the system is running in near real time so, if we have 80 percent of the farms in Canada submitting data, even if the odd farmer doesn't call a veterinarian when something happens, if it spreads to any extent the system will flag it within a few days.
November 25, 2013 - Alberta Pork
