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Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc., last week transferred ownership of its Risk Assessment Program for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) to the American Association of swine Veterinarians (AASV).
The PRRS Risk Assessment Program is the unique combination of a health risk measurement survey tool and risk benchmarking database that evaluates external bio-security and internal virus circulation risk factors that can contribute to the clinical impact of the disease.
Colin Meyers, executive director, Food Animal Business for BIVI, says the Risk Assessment tool is the result of extensive design/development and field evaluation efforts involving swine researchers, veterinarians, and producers throughout North America. "The detailed information contained within the benchmarking database can be used to help practitioners and producers more effectively monitor, evaluate and manage the risks they face wehen dealing with this devastating disease," Meyers says.
Because of the economic importance of PRRS and the clinical value of this information, we believe that it needs to be made available to the entire swine industry, especially veterinarians, so that we can better manage the disease," Meyers adds.
Development of the PRRS Risk Assessment tool and benchmarking database was led by Dale Polson, DVM, Ph. D., senior manager, technical resources for BIVI, who coordinated the BIVI team, professional services veterinarians, liasion veterinarians and many other swine veterinarians who contributed to the risk measurement tool and database over the last five years. Other BIVI team members, including Drs. Jens Kjaer, Reid Philips and Dale Spiess, and Dr. Derald Holtcamp, a veterinary consultant from Houston, Texas, also contributed.
Tom Burkgren, DVM, executive director of AASV, says Boehringer Ingelheim's development and donation of the program is a tremendous statement of the company's commitment to helping the industry overcome the challenges of PRRS.
"The PRRS Risk Assessment tool will serve the swine industry in the area's of communication, education, decision making and research," Burkgren says. "We are working with the National Pork Board and other institutionsto facilitate access of the information by the entire industry and hope to develop similar risk assessment programs for other diseases."