Delegates to the U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan Initiative, A pilot project to develop and implement an African Swine Fever monitored certification program met last week for the first time. The group is looking to both short term and long term responses to the big four foreign animal diseases. NPPC CEO Neil Dierks says those include ASF, Classical Swine Fever, Foot and Mouth Disease and Avian Influenza. He says they responded recently to the development of ASF in the Dominican Republic.

He says the SHIP group is working closely with the USDA to get protections put in place for the U.S pork industry.

Dierks says SHIP wants to make sure efforts are well put together and coordinated properly to keep foreign animal diseases out of the U.S. and to be able to react properly should they show up.

SHIP gets it funding from a USDA grant and is directed by swine veterinarians from SDSU, Iowa State University, and the University’s of Illinois and Minnesota.