After a challenging summer and as we hopefully will see the COVID restrictions ease let us look at the swine health situation.

The reporting to CWSHIN suggests that swine health has been good this year, but it would be prudent to draw your attention to a few issues that may be important over the next months.

A few factors may increase the risk of disease introduction to swine herds:

• ASF has been confirmed close to home in the Dominican Republic;
• ASF has been confirmed in domestic pigs in Germany close to control areas for ASF in wild boars;
• When COVID restrictions ease off it will mean more people can and probably will travel;
• We may expect more flu-cases in people the coming flu-season and that comes with a risk of spill-over to pigs.

There is good news (from Europe). Fences can help reduce ASF transmission from wild boars to domestic swine -- even in regions where ASF is known to be present in wild boars.

The take home message for Canadian swine producers is that if fences can limit ASF transmission they may also limit transmission of other diseases. Therefore, it is worthwhile considering fences in areas with a wild pig population - also in Canada.

The region has done well in the first year of CanSpotASF but with ASF so close to home we need to keep our guard up – very high.

The practical tips are:

Review biosecurity (with staff) for people entering swine barns in general but especially after they return to Canada from travels

Keep your guard up and help ensure good ASF surveillance with CanSpotASF. You can have your veterinarian initiate ASF rule-out testing.

Consider fences if your have barns or pigs with access to outdoors located in an area with wild pigs