Monitoring the Spread of Swine Enteric Coronavirus Diseases in the United States in the Absence of a Regulatory Framework

Perez, Andres M.; Alba, Anna; Goede, Dane; McCluskey, Brian; Morrison, Robert

The testing data of NAHLN did not record the premises identification and prevented USDA from knowing exactly how many farms or premises were infected. The lack of this attribute was a major constraint in using the NAHLN database for decision-making. The location of herds could be roughly determined by the Collection Site State variable reported by the lab, but unfortunately, this information was not completely reliable. The labs could not validate the location data and the state location could correspond to the corporate headquarters, the submitting veterinarian, or the billing address. The EMRS was specifically designed to enable accurate determination of the number and location of infected herds. In the EMRS, the PEDV-positive premises were confirmed, whereas the laboratory results data reported by the NAHLN labs were not confirmed. The participation of SHMP was voluntary and provided complete information of important disease at farm level. This information could not be checked in the field, but one would expect a minimum impact of biases associated with the reluctance of information sharing.