The US National Pork Board recently organised a foreign animal disease exercise to practice and troubleshoot a simulated response to a mock disease outbreak. According to a Pork Checkoff news release, over 40 people from academia, production, USDA, the veterinarian community and Iowa Pork Producers Association teamed up during the full-day event hosted by the Swine Medicine Education Center staff at Iowa State University.

“The value of this exercise is continuous practice since regulation, technology and stakeholder awareness evolve," said Tyler Bauman, herd veterinarian for The Maschhoffs, LLC. "The more we prepare, the quicker we can respond to an actual incident."

Participants practiced every procedure in the coordinated response plan based on location and the outbreak’s status to identify, understand and address their knowledge gaps.

“The buildup of the mock incident and protocols instructed were cohesive since each stakeholder at the drill shared a wealth of knowledge in their role, rather than filling an unknown position," said Bauman. "Plus, there were real-time insights from the High Path Avian Influenza outbreak state veterinarians could share."