Updated CWSHIN Survey Gathers More Relevant Swine Disease Surveillance Data

The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network has updated and improved the quarterly survey it circulates among western Canada’s swine veterinarians

by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online

As part of its ongoing disease monitoring and surveillance the Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network conducts quarterly impressions surveys of swine veterinarians in Western Canada.

CWSHIN Manager Dr. Jettte Christensen says the survey that goes out to these practitioners has been redesigned to make it easier for them to provide more accurate and relevant information for use in identifying trends.

“The other big thing that we can do now with the new survey is actually compare different syndromes”

 

“We have really managed, over the last two quarters, to get our survey redesigned and it seems to be really well received by the practitioners.

“That means that we can have a much better evaluation of what percentage or what proportion of the swine producers and swine production facilities we are actually covering and we’re doing quite well from that perspective in all four provinces that we are surveying and that’s a first that we can do that.

“The other big thing that we can do now with the new survey is actually compare different syndromes.
Some pathogens cause disease in the digestive system and they are actually the most frequent diseases that we see in our production systems, according to the clinical impression.

“Following right after that, respiratory diseases is also relatively common and all other syndromes and diseases like reproductive seem to cause less of a problem according to these surveys.
That’s the first time we can actually compare that.

“We couldn’t do that in the past so our new survey is really a huge improvement over the older surveys.”

Dr. Christensen says the new information also adds credibility to the surveys.