Dr. Egan Brockhoff the veterinary counsel with the Canadian Pork Council said international cooperation and collaboration are vital in addressing the spread of African Swine Fever.
Identifying ASF in the Dominican Republic raised the risk for neighbouring Caribbean nations and North and South America.
Dr. Brockhoff said having the virus in the Dominican Republic, which shares an island with Haiti, has heightened concerns. Both the Canadian U.S. governments have reached out with open arms to help the Dominican Republic, to help countries in the region with diagnostics, epidemiology and an understanding of what they need to control and contain the virus.
CFIA has been working very close with USDA-APHIS (Animal Plant Health Inspection Service) on this.
The CPC offered a number of its biosecurity resources for commercial farms.
“But more importantly, all the work done this last year on biosecurity for smallholders and backyard pork producers, we’ve sent all that to the CFIA, and they translated the materials and sent it down and received with gratitude.”
Canada’s former Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Jaspinder Komal still works with the OIE’s GF-TAD group coordinating an international response to assist the region. 
“It’s great to see the CFIA and our CVO Dr. Mary Jane Ireland and the rest of her team helping out. It’s great the pork council could provide resources that they found useful.”
Dr. Brockhoff said there is much going on and North American stakeholders are open and willing to do everything possible to help.
On the American side the USDA-APHIS recently outlined its ASF response plan.
Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the Deputy Minister of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Veterinary Services Program, said trading partners would likely cut off all trade if an outbreak occurs. Until control measures could show and even then, only limited trade to unaffected regions.
“We would want to move right away to start taking actions to control and contain any disease as soon as we identify the first case so one of the first actions might be a declaration of an extraordinary emergency.”

The declaration would allow the USDA to work with state partners to put resources toward any control measures that might need to be in place. It also helps access funding more easily and quickly needed to help with any equipment purchases or purchase sick animals.
“We’d also likely put in place a 72-hour national movement standstill to help us understand exactly where the disease is and put control measures in place before animals move again.”
Any animals or germplasm in transit would go to their destinations but no new movements until they release the movement standstill. However, once released some controlled movement in certain areas, particularly around the area of infection.
“During the national movement standstill, we’d try to identify exactly where the disease is and how we could best control it. That would involve additional surveillance and testing of animals we think have infections.”
Dr. Sifford said it would be necessary for producers to watch for and report any signs of disease and make sure their biosecurity is at its best state ever. •
— By Harry Siemens 

UPDATE:
Just at press time it was released that ASF moved to second country in the Americas.
Haiti has reported the presence of ASF.
The country reported the outbreak to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island, Hispaniola, in the Caribbean.
The affected property in Haiti is a backyard farm with 2,500 susceptible animals and 234 cases. This is also the first ASF case reported in Haiti since the 1980s. The tests were carried out in the Exotic Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL) of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the OIE reference laboratory in the United States. •