Swine Barn Air Filtration Evaluation System Expected by Mid-2016

CANADA - Scientists working on behalf of Swine Innovation Pork expect to have a new system in place for evaluating the effectiveness the air filtration systems being used to prevent disease transmission in swine barns by mid-2016, writes Bruce Cochrane.
calendar icon 4 February 2015
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Scientists working on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc are developing a new tool to evaluate the various filtration systems currently available to help protect swine herds from the airborne transmission of bacterial and viral diseases.

Dr Caroline Duchaine, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Bioinformatics with Laval University, explains that because viruses are so small, in the nanometres size, they probably travel by sticking to bigger particles but since this is not know for sure designing effective filtration systems has been challenging.

Dr Caroline Duchaine - Laval University:

Firstly, we think that we need to find the best combination of filters and pre-filters that will allow an acceptable control on those agents without increasing the production price.

Second, we think that the people that design filtration systems need to find ways to efficiently capture those agents despite the high amount of dust that is present on those types of environments.

If you use very very fine filters it will very rapidly be completely clogged by the dust so this is one of the other challenges.

Finally, producers sometimes invest lots of money on filtration systems but they don't have any information with regards to the life expectancy of these systems so they don't know if after for instance one year, six months, three months, ten years if those filters are still efficient in the role they should play so we hope that our system can eventually support this type of service and help people understand better how long will those filters last for and how long will they remain efficient to protect the production.

Dr Duchaine is confident that, by the end of the project in April 2016, a functioning evaluation system will be in place.

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