AUSTIN – A foreign animal disease outbreak in the United States would require an immediate and massive response, and while animal health officials in this country are getting prepared, there is still much work that needs to be done, according to Dr. Lelve Gayle, director of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab.
“It is possible for bioterrorists to get a foreign animal disease into this country, and it is possible they can deliver it to do the most damage,” Gayle said. He was a speaker at the summit which addressed “Biosecurity: Safeguarding Our Agriculture and Food Supply” here on May 6-7. Approximately 140 researchers, agricultural industry representatives and producers attended the meeting.
“The salvation of the animal industry in the United States would lie in its ability to respond immediately and on a massive scale,” he said. “It’s meetings like this (summit) that give us the opportunity to not only examine our strengths, but more importantly, to examine our weaknesses.”
The United States has been at risk of an accidental introduction of a foreign animal disease for years. The risk is climbing with increasing air travel.
“Our bigger concern today is the intentional introduction of foreign animal diseases, particularly those diseases that are extremely infectious in multiple species such as feral hogs and white-tailed deer,” Gayle said.
The possibility of a foreign animal disease being intentionally introduced into this country sets up an entirely different scenario than an accidental introduction, he said. An accidental introduction probably could be dealt with. Bioterrorism, on the other hand, would give the governmental entities that deal with foreign animal disease an entirely different set of problems.
“We can learn a lot of things,” if last year’s foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom is used as a model, he said.
The Institute of Public Health, Pirbright Laboratory, in the United Kingdom has been designated as the world reference laboratory for foot-and-mouth disease. Before the outbreak, Gayle said, the lab was accustomed to handling about 200 samples of suspected foot-and-mouth disease per week.
“In a very short time (during the foot-and-mouth outbreak in the United Kingdom), a matter of days, the demand went from 200 per week to 200,000 tests per week,” he said. “They were overwhelmed,” until they got additional help from other laboratories.
The University of California later did a study which indicated that for every day a diagnosis is delayed, 12 additional premises could be infected with foot-and-mouth disease.
“If your laboratory capabilities are not adequate, the folks in the field are trying to eliminate this disease on clinical signs alone.”
The incubation period of foot-and-mouth disease is five to seven days, so if animals are spreading the disease even before they are showing clinical signs, an outbreak can explode quickly.
The virus antigen and antibody tests will indicate foot-and-mouth disease before clinical signs emerge, and, Gayle suggested, these should become more widely used.
When asked about the accuracy of these tests, he said, “No laboratory test is 100 percent accurate, but it’s certainly better than just the eyeball. The stage of disease an animal is in at the time the sample is taken affects the type of test that should be performed and the outcome of the test results. Early in the disease, you must look for the causative agent. Later in the disease, you must look for antibody against the causative agent (viruses and bacteria).”
Several problems facing this country is lack of trained personnel, equipment, protocols, reagents and the availability, or portability, of tests, he said. Reagents are the chemicals used to run tests and the protocols are the test procedures used.
“Although I think we can respond to the initial outbreak very promptly and very well, a terrorist attack may occur at many locations and overwhelm the system,” he said.
He encouraged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide Plum Island Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in New York and the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, the resources, such as trained personnel, equipment and reagent, to deal with the initial outbreak.
“There is an opportunity to provide depth by training technicians and veterinarians in state diagnostic laboratories and equipping state diagnostic labs on a regional basis to serve as a reserve system to be available for testing once the federal laboratories are overwhelmed. State labs would be available for the long eradication process,” Gayle said.
He also suggested representatives and producers from the cattle, sheep, goat, poultry and swine industries take an active interest in whether the testing laboratories are ready to respond to an outbreak.
They need to “actually go to laboratories to determine if they have the capabilities or not” and “determine operational readiness.”
Producers should observe procedures and bring in experts, or facilitators, to assist them in asking the right questions.
“I think (our capabilities) should be totally transparent and our industry should know what we cannot do and what we can do,” he said.
If the teams find the laboratories are not ready to take action, then recommended corrective actions should be taken, Gayle added.
“I don’t think we’re in a panic situation,” he said. “I think you have to be in a preparation mode, and I feel very strongly that the national animal security system needs to have oversight by representatives from the animal industries.”
When asked if the threat of an intentional introduction of a foreign animal disease was real, Gayle said, “I wouldn’t think for a minute that terrorists would not want to severely damage our economy. That is one of the things they have bragged about since 9-11. If they get (the foreign animal disease) here, can they deliver it to the animal species that it’s intended for? I don’t think there’s any question about it. Our salvation would an immediate and massive response.”
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