Coming soon: Webinar about Pathogens & Prevention

02-02-2022 | Health | News

On the menu for the first Pig Progress webinar for 2022 is a pig health topic: Pathogens and Prevention. The webinar will take place on Thursday, February 24 at 3pm CET. Here’s what to expect.

The list of pathogens swine producers would rather not see in their pig houses is endless. The theme of “Pathogens & Prevention” is more important than ever with on the one hand African Swine Fever virus knocking on the doors of many countries, and on the other antibiotics being limited as an effective tool to control bacteria. Pig Progress will zoom in on the issue from various angles during a webinar with the kind cooperation of Agrimprove, Intracare and VIV Europe.

Biosecurity as a route to keep pathogens out

The first speaker at the webinar will be Dr Nele Caekebeke. She is the CEO of Biocheck.UGent, a spin-off company of Ghent University, Belgium, promoting the university’s online biosecurity tool Biocheck.UGent, which helps swine producers around the globe to step up their levels of biosecurity, keeping pathogens out.

Her presentation is called ‘Biosecurity: prevention is better than cure!’, and she will discuss the importance of biosecurity in animal production, how the Biocheck.UGent tool can help to quantify biosecurity and she will also touch on biosecurity in the context of ASF.

Choosing the right cleaning and disinfection

That will be a good start for the second speaker, being Daisy Roijackers. She is manager biosecurity and regulatory affairs at Intracare and she will discuss the first line of defence against pathogens: cleaning and disinfection – and how to make the best choice.

She will also touch on ASF, and which aspects need to be considered to make cleaning and disinfection a success. She will talk about biocides, and which properties these should have to be effective under practical circumstances.

Natural alternatives to combat bacterial infections

Thirdly, Romain D’Inca will address the audience. He is product manager, swine, at the Royal Agrifirm Group. His attention will be mostly directed at a different set of pathogens – bacteria. In the light of antibiotic reduction, finding alternative strategies is essential.

He will discuss natural alternatives, which must replace chemicals to serve the needs of farmers, consumers, and governments. He will demonstrate that selected fibre subfractions are a proven natural solution to prevent performance losses due to bacterial pathogens.