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Iowa pork officials confident following rare pseudorabies detection

A pork industry official suggests the industry was well prepared following the first detection of pseudorabies in a domestic commercial swine herd in more than 20 years.

Iowa Pork Producers Association CEO Pat McGonegle tells Brownfield the cases in Iowa and Texas came as a surprise.

“But I think the processes we have in place and the practices we’ve done for like foreign animal diseases, and this disease isn’t a foreign animal disease but it is a reportable disease, so we’ve been able to put some of the processes in place. Which allowed us to go much quicker to deal with the farm and the surrounding area.”

He says the fact that the virus was last detected in 2004 indicates pork producers are implementing effective biosecurity measures.

“But it’s an ongoing, continuous improvement process that we focus on on farms across the state here. And I just see what farms do today versus what they did even five years ago, it’s really advanced in the biosecurity.”

McGonegle says state and federal funding is helping support biosecurity systems on swine farms across the state.

The USDA says the recent pseudorabies detection does not pose a risk to consumer health or affect the safety of the commercial pork supply.