State officials say a highly-contagious pig virus has been contained and eradicated. In April, the USDA confirmed five boars shipped from Texas to a central Iowa farm had pseudorabies, which can be fatal for hogs.
The infected herds were euthanized. The final round of tests for the virus within a surveillance zone came back negative.
Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says responding to animal health threats requires coordination across his department, the USDA and producers.
“Without those three legs of the stool, you can’t effectively respond,” Naig says, “so, we were able to quickly and collaboratively eliminate the threat, while also protecting Iowa’s disease-free status, and maintain confidence in our food supply and export markets.”
The U.S. eradicated the virus from commercial swine herds more than 20 years ago, but it’s still prevalent in feral hogs. Speaking during the World Pork Expo earlier this month, Naig said the impacts to trade were minimal and short-term.
“That’s why it’s so important that we’re ready, that we are one: preventing, trying to prevent these things from happening, but two: that we respond quickly and effectively if we do have a detection,” Naig says, “so that we can communicate to our trading partners that we’ve got the situation under control and we do not have a spread.”
The detections in Iowa and Texas marked the first cases of pseudorabies in commercial swine since 2004.
(By Rachel Cramer, Iowa Public Radio)