CAHFS Weekly Update: Wisconsin partners with FDA to improve food safety emergency response; National African swine fever surveillance plan; Models predict current measles policies are insuffici
James Kincheloe

LOCAL

Wisconsin partners with FDA to improve food safety emergency response

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) announced last week that it was awarded federal funding to develop a rapid response team for food-related emergencies. The state will be partnering with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the FDA’s Rapid Response Program, with the goal of minimizing the amount of time between a human and animal food emergency and mounting a multi-agency response.

Dr. Steve Ingham, the DATCP Division of Food and Recreational Safety administrator, said, “A major challenge addressing a food-related emergency is collecting and organizing information from multiple public health agencies so we can quickly understand and mitigate the emergency.” He plans for the program to bring together these agencies for a more effective response. “Our goal is to build an integrated food safety system involving all industry, government, and consumer partners to ensure food produced in Wisconsin is safe and wholesome.”

The agreement includes $300,000 in funding each year for five years to fund the state’s rapid response initiatives. “We appreciate FDA’s recognition of the important roles state agencies play in protecting the food supply and look forward to continuing our partnership for a national integrated food safety system,” said Ingham.

DATCP
 

 

NATIONAL

National African swine fever surveillance plan

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it is advancing African swine fever (ASF) preparedness by implementing a national surveillance system. In conjunction with state agencies, the swine industry, and veterinary diagnostic labs, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will begin testing for ASF. 
 
"African swine fever is an area of high interest among the veterinary community and our swine industry, and we continue to take action to prepare for this deadly disease," said Greg Ibach, the USDA Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. "While we are confident that our overlapping safeguards will continue to keep ASF out of the United States, an enhanced surveillance program will serve as an early warning system, helping us find any potential disease much more quickly. It will also minimize virus spread and support efforts to restore trade markets and animal movements as quickly as possible should the disease be detected."

The surveillance will begin as early as in a few weeks when ASF tests will be added to the already existing classical swine fever surveillance system.  High-risk animals such as sick pig submissions to veterinary diagnostic laboratories, sick or dead pigs at slaughter, and pigs from herds that are at greater risk for disease through such factors as exposure to feral swine or garbage feeding will be specifically targeted, in addition to any other high risk cases identified by state and local partners.  

United Sates Animal Health Association
USDA

INTERNATIONAL

Models predict current measles policies are insufficient

A study published in the journal BMC Medicine indicates that country specific policies may be needed to prevent a resurgence of measles. The team of researchers at the Bruno Kessler Foundation and Bocconi University in Italy used a computer model to predict patterns of measles immunity in Australia, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, South Korea, the U.K, and the U.S. from 2018 to 2050.  

All countries have a two-dose measles vaccination program with high primary school program rates, but differ in demographics and vaccination histories. They found that of all the countries under their current programs, only Singapore and South Korea would have a high enough proportion of the population immune to the virus for it to be eliminated.  

Author Dr. Stefano Merler said, “Our results suggest that most of the countries we have studied would strongly benefit from the introduction of compulsory vaccination at school entry in addition to current immunization programs. In particular, we found that this strategy would allow the U.K., Ireland and the U.S. to reach stable herd immunity levels in the next decades, which means that a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease to avoid future outbreaks.” Without changes, they predict up to 10 percent of individuals in some countries could be susceptible to measles by 2050, well over the 7.5 percent goals of programs to eliminate the disease.  

BMC Medicine
Homeland Security Newswire

James Kincheloe

James Kincheloe

James received his DVM from the University of California, Davis. He has worked as a herd veterinarian for dairy cows and a small animal veterinarian in California. Jim is interested in agricultural and infectious disease policy, and has collaborated on domestic and international projects across the public health spectrum.