Foreign Animal Disease Investigation Rules Out Food and Mouth Disease in Britain

The Swine Health Information Center is applauding the handling of a suspected case of Foot and Mouth Disease last week in the United Kingdom. Last week authorities in Britain imposed a 10-kilometer Temporary Control Zone around a premises near Feltwell, Kings Lynn and West Norfolk in response to a report of symptoms resembling Foot and Mouth Disease.

Following official testing, which ruled out Foot and Mouth Disease, that control zone was lifted. Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says this is an example of how a foreign animal disease investigation needs to be addressed.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

We need to make producers aware that this foreign animal disease investigation issue is not a deal killer for their production. This is something that needs to be done with some regularity.We're finding Seneca Valley Virus lesions that look just like Foot and Mouth Disease and those lesions are indistinguishable from each other.

When producers find lesions and their veterinarians find lesions, they need to report that just as quickly as they can to a state or federal health official and  that investigation needs to be done.We don't take for granted and assume that we know what we've got because we've had it before and it looks just like it. 
We always have to do those investigations and it's not a deal killer for production.

One of the things that we're working on with the Swine Health Information Center is to make sure that people are up to date on their investigation.

The knowledge of this investigation and the temporary control zone in England came through social media and we wanted to get that word back out to people that may have heard of it that this was part of a normal process that England went through.They did the right thing and investigated it, found out it was negative and then went on with their agricultural life over there.

Dr. Sundberg says it's a matter of making sure people are informed and that's what the Swine Health Information Center is trying to do all the time.