Dift—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 22,1980
Xhe best way to protect
this country’s livestock
industry from some of the
world’s serious plant and
animal diseases is to stop
those diseases from entering
the country in any form.
The Department of
Agriculture has an elaborate
system of inspection at
various ports of entry, and so
far it’s been pretty lucky
Several of the world’s most
damaging diseases have
been kept out, but it’s a
never-ending battle as a
recent outbreak of exotic
Newcastle disease
illustrates. '
A few pet birds that
somehow entered the
country carrying that
disease and the next thing
you know there were con
firmed infected birds in
almost 20 states. Quick
action and a little luck, and it
looks as though the threat
was contained. But there’s
always the next tune.
Even though there’s a
quarantine system and all
sorts of inspections, the
threat looms quite large to
the poultry industry.
Another potential threat is
from African swine fever.
Several close-by countries
have it. including Cuba and
Haiti, so animal health of
ficials are always on the
alert. They know that one
infected animal or pork
scrap from one of those
countries could introduce it.
The problems that would
cause are almost un
measurable.
The Dominican Republic
has had a serious swine
fever problem and its
government has opted for
the ultimate solution
elimination of that small
country’s entire swine
population. After fighting a
futile battle for years,
animal health officials in
that country finally decided
that the only way they cou’d
clean up the disease problem
would be to get rid of all the
pigs and start over.
That’s exactly what’s
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happening. With the help of
U.S. Department of
Agriculture experts they’ve
gotten nd of all of their hogs
and now they’re going to
start over.
Pigs have always played a
critical role in the lives of the
Dominican people. Besides
commercial production for
domestic use and export,
nearly every rural family
keeps a few animals for
daily use.
In the past almost every
family had a pig or two in the
back yard. They were
allowed to run loose in the
neighborhood, scrounging
for food wherever they could
find it...a most difficult
environment when you
consider a disease control
program
In the spring of 1978
Dominican pigs began dying
from some mysterious
disease. The problem was
diagnosed mistakenly as hog
cholera. An intense vac
cination program followed,
but it soon became evident
that the vaccinated pigs
were dying as quickly as
non-vaccmated pigs. Only
then did veterinarians
properly diagnose the
problem as African swine
fever But that was several
months later and by then the
disease had spread across
the country
Government officials
considered many alter
natives for eradicating the
costly African swine fever,
and finally decided that
eliminating the entire swine
population would be the least
expensive procedure with
the highest probability of
success.
So the government made
the decision, unique in the
history of the Western
hemisphere, to eliminate an
entire domestic animal
species and start fresh with
new swine, free of African
swine fever and many other
bothersome diseases.
That decision forced the
Dominican government not
only to deal with the
technical aspects of
eradication but also with
social implications and
economic disruptions.
The eradication program
started in August 1979 and by
September 1900 there wasn’t
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a pig left in that country.
Under the direction of the
Dominican secretary of
agriculture, more than 90
brigades of veterinarians,
soldiers, field workers and
animal health personnel,
moved simultaneously from
the west, north and east,
rounding up and destroying
every swine herd and every
back yard pig.
Simultaneously the
government launched a
major public information
effort to tell farmers that
they would receive a fair
price for their hogs. They
were given the option of
slaughtering them, on the
spot, for family consumption
or of being paid for them.
Meat from hogs that have
African swine fever is not
harmful to humans who eat
it, so human consumption
provided a fairly useful
technique in the eradication
program.
Along with this effort the
government started a
poultry distribution program
to help feed rural families
during the tune before
disease-free pigs could be
reintroduced. And it also
supplied rural groups with
information and demon
strations on how to care for
poultry.
After a three-month
waiting period to be sure the
virus was completely
destroyed, susceptible swine
from the United States were
introduced as sentmals to
test whether the virus was
still present. If these sen
tmals remain healthy for
three months, the govern
ment will then begin
restocking the country with
disease-free pigs shipped
from the United States.
That whole process will
take at least another year,
but then the country should
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be completely free of
African swine fever as well
as many other costly and
bothersome swine diseases.
Of course the threat will
remain from outside its
borders, so a strong vigil
must be maintained as it is
here in the United States
where animal health of
ficials operate a variety of
inspection and surveillance
activities. Not only must
they stop infected animals
and carcasses, but also any
kind of swine fever con
taminated food scraps or
garbage from entering the
country.
In both the Dominican
Republic and Brazil, the
original outbreaks of African
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swine fever were traced
back to food scraps that
came off international
airline flights.
Meanwhile, the Depart
ment of Agriculture is
State milk
HARRISBURG - Milk
production in Pennsylvania
during October 1980 totaled
711 million pounds, up five
percent from a year earlier,
according to the Penn
sylvania Crop Reporting
Service.
The number of milk cows
in the commonwealth during
October was 718,000 head, up
15,000 head from a year ago.
working with other countries
of the Western hemisphere
in an effort to help eradicate
the African swine fever virus
from the Western
hemisphere. That would be
the ultimate solution.
output up 5%
Milk production per
averaged 990 pounds in
October, up 30 pounds from a
year ago.
United States production
during October totaled 10.5
billion pounds, three percent
above October 1979. Milk
production per cow
averaged 960 pounds, 24
pounds more than a year
earlier and 56 pounds above
October 1978.