A new foreign animal disease surveillance effort will help speed up the detection of African Swine Fever in pigs should it arrive in Canada. 
CanSpotASF is part of a suite of African Swine Fever preparedness activities under the ASF Executive Management Board. 
Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network manager Dr. Jette Christensen explains CanSpotASF is a broad collaboration involving the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Pork Council, and the Canadian Meat Council. Also, stakeholders include the provinces, the pork boards, the laboratories, and the Canada Swine Health Intelligence Network, the umbrella for all regional networks in Canada. 
Dr. Christensen said CanSpotASF has a specific goal – enhanced surveillance to protect the swine sector from ASF’s impacts. It consists of several surveillance tools they can phase-in, with the first tool’s launching in the third quarter as a pilot project. 
“We will use it for about a year, evaluate, and then improve on that specific tool with a long name ‘Risk-Based Early Detection Testing at Approved Laboratories,’”she said. “In short, that is rule out testing at laboratories approved to test for ASF.” 
The idea is to improve the early detection and, that way, help to minimize the impact of ASF should it ever occur in Canada. 
Dr. Christensen said early detection of African Swine Fever would help speed up containment. 
To rule out testing offers an added line of defence with minimal risk of disrupting the day to day production of pork and the one-year pilot project represents enhanced surveillance. 
“We’ve estimated that the number of eligible cases that we would select from is about 700 per year in Canada but don’t expect to test all 700 cases, maybe half, but to be determined,” she said.  
CanSpotASF knows the test the laboratory is using is an excellent test and, if they tested all 700 samples per year, we would expect one false positive case in 14 years. But we don’t know if that is the first case or the last case in those 14 years, but very few will have a false positive. 
If this false positive happens, there will be movement restrictions for 48 to 96 hours for that producer while CFIA follows up and confirms whether the case is positive or negative and then go back to normal. 
Dr. Christensen said if they find a positive case, the story is different, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will go into full combat mode to contain and control the disease. 
International livestock consultant and veterinarian Dr. John Carr from Australia said this is standard practice. It is a feature of all tests, there are false positives, and the governments have standard operating procedures to check. 
“The advantage we have today is we often have other tests we can apply,” said Dr. Carr, who consults in feeding hogs in China. “In China, especially in the early days, I had a lot of false-positive cases – because the lab picked up the virus from the lab!! Not from the samples. Our tests can be way too sensitive also!” 
She said anyone could access the information on CanSpotASF through the National Farmed Animal Health and Welfare Council web site. *
— By Harry Siemens