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In face of the unusual presence of diarrhoea, vomiting and high piglet mortality, symptoms that are compatible with the "porcine epidemic diarrhoea", a disease considered exotic in Colombia, the Agriculture and Livestock Colombian Institute (ICA) declared a health emergency in Colombia and activated its alert system in order to increase the surveillance and attention when faced with any suspicious case.
The disease was identified in the departments of Huila and Cundinamarca, regions in which the ICA implemented, immediately, the corresponding operations in order to prevent the spreading of the disease and to implement the relevant surveillance and control measures in the municipalities of Neiva, La Mesa and Fusagasugá.
“So far, the technicians of the ICA have visited the farms located in the intervened areas. The epidemiologic surveillance was carried out, and the health status of the animals was verified, and this has allowed us to show that the disease has not spread from the intervened areas to other regions. Up to now, we have not detected new outbreaks of the disease”, explained the general manager of the ICA, Luis Humberto Martínez Lacouture, who added that "as a health authority, the Institute will tend to this event with a strict technical rigour and will proceed to take the appropriate measures to safeguard swine health in Colombia”.
The ICA ordered the cancelling of the carrying out of events that imply the concentration of animals of any species in the municipalities in which the disease is present in order to avoid its spreading, whilst it will continue visiting the swine farms with the aim of progressing with respect to the epidemiologic surveillance and control activities.
The general manager of the ICA invites the swine producers of all Colombia to notify, immediately, any suspicious case of disease, not to buy pigs of unknown origin, and to report any case of pig contraband, as well as to apply, at once, the biosafety measures on swine farms.
In this sphere, pig producers must maximise the cleaning and disinfection on their farms and vehicles, recommend their workers to adopt biosafety measures, and to control the entrance on their farms of any person or vehicle that could be a mean for the spreading of the disease.
Friday March 14, 2014/ ICA/ Colombia.
http://www.ica.gov.co
