Farms.com Home   News

Veterinary Syndromic Surveillance Using Swine Production Data For Farm Health Management And Early Disease Detection

The use of syndromic surveillance (SyS) has grown in animal health since the 2010s, but the use of production data has been underexplored due to methodological and practical challenges. This paper aimed to tackle some of those challenges by developing a SyS system using production data routinely collected in pig breeding farms. Health-related indicators were created from the recorded data, and two different time-series types emerged: the weekly counts of events traditionally used in SyS; and continuous time-series, where every new event is a new observation, and grouping by time-unit is not applied. Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) and Shewhart control charts were used for temporal aberration detection, using three detection limits to create a "severity" score. The system performance was evaluated using simulated outbreaks of porcine respiratory and reproduction syndrome (PRRS) as a disease introduction scenario. The system proved capable of providing early detection of unexpected trends, serving as a useful health and management decision support tool for farmers. Further research is needed to combine results of monitoring multiple parallel time-series into an overall assessment of the risk of reproduction failure.

Click here to see more...

Trending Video

A Day in the Life of a Swine Veterinarian

Video: A Day in the Life of a Swine Veterinarian


Meet Svetlana: A Swine Veterinarian Making a Difference in Manitoba.

Join us as we follow a day in the life of Svetlana, a dedicated swine veterinarian working in Manitoba’s hog sector . In her Career Month feature, she shares her journey, the daily care and passion behind working with pigs, and what it takes to help an entire industry thrive.

Why the Pork Industry Matters:
The hog sector provides over 22,000 jobs across Manitoba. It contributes more than $2.3 billion annually to Manitoba’s GDP.
It accounts for over 55% of all agriculture & agri-food manufacturing jobs in the province.

Want a career like Svetlana’s?
Head over to www.manitobapork.com/careers to explore the many paths available in the pork industry — from veterinary services to production, logistics, human resources and more.