Rapid Response Corps to Speed Up Reaction of Emerging Diseases
Dr. Paul Sundberg, the Executive Director of the Swine health Information Centre, told FarmScape Online that the creation of a Rapid Response Corps will speed up the response to emerging diseases that pose a threat to the U.S. swine herd
by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online
“We’ve divided the country up into six regions,” Sunburn said during his interview. “The objective behind dividing up into regions is so our teams, our rapid response teams, will be able to drive to the site of the outbreak. One of the lessons we learned when we tried to do rapid response investigations for PEDv in the past was; despite good investigation tactic, it wasn’t very rapid because we had to fly people from one part of the country to the other, so response was delayed.”
“What we’re trying to do here is ensure that we can get experts onto the farm right away”
As a result the Swine Health Information Centre, in partnership with the University of Iowa, has created a Rapid Response Program and is recruiting members for the Rapid Response Corps – individuals who can be dispatched to locations to investigate diseases of unknown epidemiology that have been identified.
“What we’re trying to do here is ensure that we can get experts onto the farm right away,” Sandberg added. “Within each of those regions we’ve identified experts in the fields of veterinary medicine, of veterinarians that consult, veterinarians that are good at disease investigation, of diagnosticians, of epidemiologists, and also along with the state or federal animal health officials, if they are appropriate to involve in the investigation.”
Sundberg says the PED outbreak in 2013 demonstrated the need to effectively respond to emerging diseases.
“What we want to do is, within each of those regions, is get the experts that are within those regions mobilized so they can quickly get onto the farm in case there is a positive outbreak.”
The Rapid Response Corps training is available through swinehealth.org and will be provided on an ongoing basis.
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