Biosecurity

There have been significant recent developments in the spread of African swine fever (ASF) in the world. Developments in the distant countries of Germany and the Dominican Republic are especially grabbing headlines, with domestic pigs becoming infected in Germany and the first cases in the western hemisphere in nearly 40 years appearing in the Dominican Republic. ASF continues to spread in domestic pigs in countries such as in China, the Philippines, Romania, Poland and Serbia (Cadogan, 1 Aug 2021; Fastmarkets, 2021; FAO EMPRES, 2021). The spread of the virus is worse among wild boar in countries such as Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia (Cadogan, 1 Aug 2021). We turn our attention here to the evolving situations in Germany and the Dominican Republic. While the developments in the two countries are unrelated to each other, they highlight the scope and challenges associated with controlling the disease.

Switzerland’s livestock population has a favourable animal health and welfare status, but how can animal health be quantified and monitored over time? Joining forces of several partner institutions, the Smart Animal Health project aimed to develop a method for the objective, systematic and reliable collection and evaluation of the health status of farm animals.

Backyard pig farmers are crucial partners in efforts to prevent and control ASF. SAFOSO led a survey in Ukraine to assess ASF knowledge, practices and skills of backyard farmers in four regions.

Who are the people behind SAFOSO? What inspires them and how do they contribute to solving animal health challenges? Susanne Küker shares her story.

The excessive consumption of antimicrobials has become a major concern at the global level, and several studies have highlighted the link between antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance. Strategies such as the Swiss National Strategy “StAR” have been implemented to reduce the disposal of antimicrobials in farm animals. In Switzerland however, veterinarians make economic profit by disposing antimicrobials to farmers. A reduction of sales will therefore inevitably lead to a reduction in revenues for the veterinarian.

From February to April, SAFOSO supported the canton of Aargau with its pilot project Repetitive Testing (ReTe) for SARS-CoV-2 in collaboration with IXORIS and other stakeholders.

Throughout the pandemic, African swine fever (ASF), a viral disease of pigs and wild boar has continued affecting countries and causing serious socio-economic consequences to the swine value chain especially farmers worldwide.

Who are the people behind SAFOSO? What inspires them and how do they contribute to solving animal health challenges? Marco De Nardi shares his story.

Silja is very happy to join the team at SAFOSO for 6 months as an intern and to have the opportunity to gain more experience in the field of One Health. Currently, she is mostly supporting projects on COVID-19 as well as a few other projects on animal health.

SAFOSO and the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in partnership with USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) completed a 10-month project in December 2020 on African Swine Fever (ASF) capacity building for veterinarians in South East Asia. The project supported development of training material on ASF early detection and emergency response specific to the regional and country-level context.

SAFOSO worked with a Swiss insurance company to develop and implement a webinar series to help their employees to breakdown the evolving information on the COVID-19 pandemic and what it means for them in the workplace.

Currently, news of ongoing outbreaks of Avian Influenza (AI) in birds are hitting the media. Since November, 436 outbreaks in domestic birds and 1101 in wild birds have been reported across Europe, with serious economic consequences for poultry keepers. But what does that mean? Here is our summary of the past and present AI situation.