Animal AgTech Innovation 2020: stopping African swine fever in its tracks | The Pig Site

Which methods of introduction pose the highest risk to the US herd?

Contaminated meat is probably the most common and high risk means of the virus moving, simply because illegal movement of meat across borders is so common. We also know that the virus survives well in pork.

The risk of contaminated feed is not nearly as high but there is so much feed moving from country to country, this raises the level of risk. There is a significant volume of feed ingredients being imported to the US from ASF-positive regions which is worrying. Soy-based products are being imported daily and we know soy provides a protective environment for the virus so this poses a big risk.

There are also certain vitamins only produced in China so we still need to import these products. Equally, most of the soy being imported from areas processing grain on the ground is being labelled as organic and we don’t produce organic soy in the US.

The question now is: how do we serve these niche markets in the US that truly need those products without endangering our livestock?

What have been the main routes of control of the virus to date?

Viruses are usually controlled with a vaccine, however we do not have one for ASF yet. This is likely to come a little further down the road because it is a very difficult virus to work with – it is very complex and hard to understand.

In North America, we’ve been looking at approaches to keep the virus out of the continent. This has led to increased focus at border control and research into mitigating the risks of imported contaminated grains, for example.

What alternative approaches to controlling the disease are you proposing?

We’ve developed a programme called Responsible Imports, which is a science-based way to introduce products from high-risk countries, specifically vitamins, minerals and amino acids from China. It’s a feed quarantine programme which allows us to store the products in isolation for a period of time before then allowing them into US feed mills and onto pig farms.

The virus doesn’t survive forever so time is on our side here. If we can hold these products in a stable, warm environment that encourages the decay of the virus, for the required amount of time, we can ensure the products leave virus-free.

A lot of companies have enrolled in this programme, and in Canada this method has been rolled out on a national level.

This is the holding time approach.

Our other approach has been to investigate feed additives that either kill the virus or reduce the quantity of viable virus and protect the pig. We call this Feed Additive Mitigation.

I’m currently testing various chemistries and products that are in development around the US on PRRS, PED and Senecavirus. As there are only two labs in the US that are able to work with ASF, I can only work with other notifiable viruses which are a problem in their own right but can also replicate the characteristics of ASF.

The research has yielded positive results so far – the mitigants are extremely effective in suppressing the virus. What’s useful to note is that these additives are already used in pig feeds.

We can actually use these two approaches – Responsible Imports and Feed Additive Mitigation – together, whereby we introduce the feed additive and then quarantine the products, which would allow for shorter quarantine times whilst ensuring the product is safe for pigs.

I think this is some light at the end of the tunnel for countries looking for ways they can actively suppress the virus and prevent its spread.

The next step, which is likely to take more time, will be targeting governance and controlling the movement of risky materials and products across borders.