Department of Livestock improves disease preparedness

The Montana Department of Livestock recently completed a training exercise to improve response to a foreign animal disease in a Montana swine herd. The four-day event was conducted in partnership with the National Pork Board and the Montana Pork Producers Association and involved a simulated detection of African Swine Fever (ASF); a swine disease that has recently been detected in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Traditional methods of disease control such as quarantine, vaccination, and early marketing are insufficient to control ASF, where large numbers of swine will die of the disease. To...