To address gaps identified in swine health surveillance the Canadian Swine Health Board launched the development of the Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network, a system that will use social media to allow swine veterinarians to communicate regularly.

The initiative was discussed last month in Saskatoon as part of the 2012 Cross Border Livestock Health Conference. Bob Harding, the Executive Director of the Canadian Swine Health Board, explains the goal was to create an organized process for sharing animal health information.

Bob Harding-Canadian Swine Health Board:

What ultimately this will turn into is a system whereby we have a network of veterinarians who are on the front line with producers on what is developing, feeding things through a network, a social network if you will, of veterinarians who are sharing information on a confidential basis, not talking about farm names or anything but just in certain regions.

As far as time frames are concerned we've just launched the development of the vet network whereby we're using new technology that allows our veterinarians to share information so that we can move the country forward.

If there's something happening in one part of the country that we know about, that's really critical to the Canadian Swine Health Board because that's what we've been doing all along.

If there's something we see that's been developing we try to assess it, try to a address it, develop teams of experts that can address certain points and monitor certain things.

Fortunately most of those things have come to not but it's important to be ready in case things develop further.

Harding says we want to ensure a quick response to any developing disease threats and, if something is happening, that our producers and their veterinarians are able to get the information and the help that they need.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.