On 5 June, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack issued a Federal Order requiring pork producers, veterinarians and diagnostic labs to report presumptive (positive diagnostic test with non-specific or no clinical signs) or confirmed (positive diagnostic test with clinical signs) positive occurrences of PED virus (PEDV), PDCo virus (PDCoV) or other novel swine enteric coronaviruses that meet the case definition.

An occurrence of these swine enteric coronaviruses may be the initial detection of disease or a reoccurrence of previously detected disease. If a sample is submitted to a National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) laboratory for testing and is found to be positive, duplicate reporting by the herd owner, producers, veterinarians and others with knowledge of the disease is not required. Reporting by producers or veterinarians must be directed to the state animal health official or the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Assistant District Director located in the state in which the herd resides.

USDA requires the following specific reporting information to be submitted:

• Premises identification number (PIN) or an alternative premises location identifier (if you do not have a PIN, go to www.pork.org/pintag)
• Date of sample collection
• Type of unit being sampled, e.g. sow, nursery, finisher
• Test methods used to make the diagnosis
• Diagnostic test results

In addition, the producer must develop and implement, in collaboration with the herd veterinarian, state veterinarian or APHIS veterinarian, a herd management plan that addresses the following:

1. Diagnostic testing to monitor the status of the herd infection and to assess efficacy of control strategies (laboratory costs subsidized by APHIS)

Along with the samples submitted, producers and their veterinarians need to include a valid Premises Identification Number (PIN) or an alternative premises identifier on all diagnostic laboratory submission forms.

2. Herd plans will follow the best management and disease control practices known to date.

The following four general areas of biosecurity will be identified and described by herd veterinarians and may change as new information becomes available.

• employee and visitor biosecurity enhancement
• pigs coming onto a site
• trucks and trucking personnel, and
• feed components

3. Producers will be required to maintain up-to-date records on pig movements on and off the facility and to make them accessible to animal health officials when needed.

Herd owners or veterinarians failing to promptly report a presumptive (positive diagnostic test with nonspecific or no clinical signs) or confirmed positive (positive diagnostic test with clinical signs) case or to follow a herd management plan may be subject to civil penalties, revocation of veterinary accreditation and may have additional requirements (hold order, quarantine, permitting or other restrictions for movement of pigs) placed on their premises by state or federal animal health officials.

All USDA documents related to this new Federal Order and additional supporting documents can be found on the USDA web site.

Q & A about New USDA Swine Coronavirus Program is Available

USDA issued a Federal Order, 'Reporting, Herd Monitoring and Management of Novel Swine Enteric Coronavirus Diseases', effective 5 June 2014. To learn more about the monitoring and control programme, go to the USDA’s Q&A Fact Sheet.

For additional information, or if there are questions about USDA’s Novel Swine Enteric Coronavirus mandatory reporting programme, contact the USDA Assistant District Director in your state using the information found here.