Lessons learned from swine diseases already present can help us deal with any that come up in the future, according to Dr. Robert Derosiers with Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) Canada, who talked about past and future emerging swine diseases at this year’s North Carolina swine seminar.
“For some diseases that are easily transmitted indirectly, an individual approach is usually not good enough, we need a collective approach,” said Derosiers. “The best example would be PRRS. We’ve been talking about biosecurity for PRRS for 15 years and individual efforts so far have not done the job.”
Collective could mean on a regional basis, or even global. “If we’re losing $500 million a year because of that bug (PRRS), can we try to do something on a country basis, maybe?” said Derosiers.
Looking ahead, Derosiers says a bigger concern is when diseases mutate and change. “For some of the emerging pathogens that we have had, and PRRS is one of them, there’s nothing we can do because this bug was there way before it began to create problems, so it evolved,” he said. “This is a sign of the future that there will be some bugs that we will not be able to prevent the emergence.” Which is why he stresses that the collective approach will become even more important in the future.
Listen to Chuck’s interview with Dr. Derosiers here: Interview with Dr. Richard Derosiers, BIVI