In an effort to improve the ability of the US swine industry to respond to threats posed by novel diseases the University of Iowa in partnership with the Swine Health Information Centre has developed a Rapid Response Programme, including the creation of a corps of individuals who can be dispatched to locations where diseases of unknown epidemiology have been identified to investigate.

Swine Health Center Executive Director Dr Paul Sundberg says training is accessible through the centre's web site at swinehealth.org.

Dr Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center

One of the important things when we're looking at novel outbreaks, and use that term epidemiologically distinct outbreaks, one of the important things is to do a consistent standardised job of investigation.

Don't forget questions.

Don't have questions on one farm, maybe you forgot something important on another farm.

Having different people do this gives the opportunity for some variation in how the investigations are done.

What we're doing here is standardizing that process, standardising the process of the investigation form, standardising the investigation itself to make sure that we cover all of the bases when there's an outbreak that's under investigation.

I think that, in offering that standardisation along with the issue of doing this rapidly, we're going to be way farther along the road of having a quick, effective and manageable response to an emerging disease outbreak.

Dr Sundberg says, while Corps members will be required to participate in the online training, it is open to all who are interested in the Rapid Response Programme or wish to grow their knowledge of epidemiological investigation and processes.