It is easy to marvel at how under-appreciated, yet familiar and expected biosecurity is to the livestock community:
- Swine producers learned to shower in and shower out of facilities years ago as part of their efforts to reduce swine disease and stop massive death losses due to farm-to-farm fomite exchanges < link >
- Progressive dairies manage mastitis incidence between cows and recently began incorporating gloves during milking to reduce bacterial fomite transfer
- Biosecurity is essential to poultry production and is a challenge with cage-free dictates
- Animal ID, source verification and labeling are proactive measures to help avoid contaminants getting into food and tracing when contamination does occur
Changing behaviors is the most critical component to biosecurity. Discipline to an ordered protocol is required for any fomite control success. A single event of laziness or neglect can mess up the whole system.
Source: National Hog Farmer, August 16, 2019. Link.
Biosecurity is nothing new. . . all we’re trying to do. . . is to reduce the amount of potentially contaminated material or animal or equipment, and to separate it from healthy animals (including people).” – Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt
INSIGHTS: The One Health movement was supposed to bring us closer together and diminish three or more decades of species silos. We are lucky to have a non-zoonotic coronavirus to force us to communicate as a society and as animal health pros. We, the animal health industry, must lend our science backgrounds to the discussion to support human safety and instill new habits before we are faced with a zoonotic bug.
WE can make a difference