Although the lessons learned are different for each stakeholder group, Yvette Johnson-Walker, DVM and senior lecturer in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, says lessons are always learned when practicing veterinarians, livestock producers and allied industry come together for a foreign animal disease tabletop exercise.
In fact, participants are often surprised at the complexity of disease response and the number of agencies and legal authorities involved – state and federal Departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Natural Resources, Public Safety/Law enforcement, Public Health, Environmental Protection, and more depending on the nature of the disease outbreak, she said in a campus release.
With a grant from the USDA, Johnson-Walker and two other faculty members from the College of Veterinary Medicine recently conducted trainings to better prepare state animal health officials to respond to these types of foreign animal diseases. In March, Johnson-Walker, Gay Miller and Will Sander traveled to New Hampshire to facilitate a tabletop exercise that simulated a coordinated response to an introduction of African swine fever (ASF).
Read the full story at Farm Journal’s Pork.
[Source: Farm Journal’s Pork 17 May 2024]