Hello, and I'm Linda Evans, and I'm going to talk about biosecurity. The timing's good, it's an important subject. We've had a pandemic just a few years ago, and we have outbreaks of exotic notifiable disease in our country.
There are outbreaks in Europe that present a threat to our company, to our country. And we also are scrutinising one health, one welfare, inextricable link between the health and welfare of people and animals and the environment. Biosecurity is really important to that.
In this presentation, I'm going to be looking at general principles. There won't be time to delve down into detail. But we can produce more presentations, we can look at supporting you in producing biosecurity plans if there's a demand.
Looking at the title today, are we spreading disease? It might look as if I'm being judgmental, I'm going to preach. I'm really not.
I understand the constraints, the practical problems, and what I want to do today is work together, look at what we're doing, how we're doing it, and can we make improvements. I've worked extensively with biosecurity across many sectors. I've worked in practise, including farm practise.
I've worked in government. I've worked in charities. I've also worked internationally with farmed animals and with working animals.
So I really do understand the practical problems and the the difficulties, the constraints we work under. Those very difficult scenarios that we, we face. I remember well, there's lots of years ago, can't even think about how many years ago, going across, fields to a cow with milk fever at 6 a.m.
In the morning. I'm sure lots of you have done this. In a muddy ditch, boots covered in mud, covered in dung, walking back across 3 or 4 fields to a car, aware that I need to get back and have a quick shower before I start consultations at 9 a.m.
We're often under a lot of pressure, a very busy workload. But we still need to think about what we do with those boots, where we clean them, how we clean them. I'm sure you've also had the experience of a farm where you need to get out of the car and change into boots at least 200 yards before you get to the farm drive, before you even go through the gate, because you're aware that once you get in there, there's not even a square foot of clean ground to change, footwear in.
It's a huge biosecurity risk. The biggest risk is probably coming away from that farm, carrying mud, carrying dung, possibly carrying contamination. Where do you change back into shoes?
What do you do with those boots? I mean, I did think we could have that at the end of a round of visits, but not always practical. In hindsight, looking at this, I should have been looking outside the box.
I should have been looking at it from a different angle. Encouraging, educating, helping that farmer to improve his biosecurity. To protect his own animals, but also not to spread disease from his animals to other animals.
And it's very easy to think about that in hindsight. And this is the whole point of today's presentation. Is it time to review your biosecurity?
We always need to question what we're doing, to look at what we're doing, to check, actually we are doing the best. And I hope that today's presentation is going to help. To start with, let's look at the definition of biosecurity.
Measures aim to prevent or limit the introduction of a pathogenic agent and the further spread of a pathogenic agent between groups of animals or populations of animals. This is really clear. It's really easy to follow.
We need to keep an eye on this as we go through this presentation. It applies whatever the size of the infection, whatever the spread of the disease, whether it's an individual animal, whether it's a local population or the national herd or even across the world. We need to keep this in eye, in our eye all the time.
It's one of the most important threats to the health and welfare of the animals in our care. Spreading disease. Will affect welfare.
We shouldn't underestimate the part we can play in promoting biosecurity, in practising good biosecurity. We can really make a difference. We can't be complacent.
We must all be responsible. Like Let's look at an example. COVID-19, a very obvious example, it might have affected mainly people, but it demonstrates a lot of the messages that I want to give today.
Outbreak of COVID-19 became a global pandemic in a very short time. It sent the world into lockdown. It highlighted the dangers, contagious diseases.
And it brought disease control into the public eye. The public are a lot more aware of how we need to practise good hygiene, how we need to prevent disease spread. It certainly taught us how easily and how quickly contagious diseases can spread.
They can arrive unexpectedly and they kind of spread. Before we even have time to be prepared, they can become out of control very quickly. Look at the statistics here.
And I've got the, I've got taken this from the World Health organisation. At the end of January 2020, we had no cases in the UK. Within 2 months we've moved from no cases to over 492 cases per million people.
That's frightening. It's really scary. And don't forget as well, these were only the cases that were confirmed and were reported.
It's the tip of the iceberg. People are moving around. We can't stop people moving around like we can animals in an animal outbreak.
So they're moving around, so I'm willing to bet that this was a huge geographical spread as well, although there aren't the stats to show, show that, or I didn't find that there are. The UK in the end reported 25 million cases to date. Huge escalation, huge spread.
COVID-19 was reported in a total of 93 countries. And again, this will only be the countries that did actually confirm and report them. There will have been a lot more countries.
So government messaging at the time was to use very strict hygiene and to use the correct PPE. These measures were across all the different sectors, and we became very good, it became a habit. Have we learned lessons from this?
As time passes and memories fade. Habits that we adopted to improve biosecurity are no longer in general use, and this emphasises the message that we need to be using it all the time so that it becomes automatic, it doesn't fade, we don't forget about it. Why does biosecurity matter?
Why do we need to practise it? Let's consider the implications, the impact of not practising good biosecurity. Of actually having disease disease spread.
As vets and animal health professionals are paramount concern is the health and welfare of the animals we care for. Ill health has a potential for discomfort, pain, for suffering. This will have an effect on the welfare of the animal and their quality of life.
It might even lead to loss of life, euthanasia, slaughter if it's a disease that's out of control, and that is the method of control. So We have an emotional loss for people if their animals have to be slaught euthanized or slaughtered, an effect on their well-being. But we also have economic, economic loss.
At the time, there's a cost of living crisis, owners may have to pay extra for cost of treatment. This will also take away from income for those in production. Those in production, animals may lose their productivity.
Their income might be lost. There'll be a further hit on economics with movement restrictions, which are often put in place very quickly once a disease is is confirmed. This might mean that beef animals, poultry, ready for slaughter, cannot travel to slaughter, and that not only has an economic effect, but also a welfare effect for those animals, there might not be the space or the resources to keep them.
Beyond slaughter weight. Events, shows, markets could be cancelled. Consider the horse racing event as a huge financial hit.
It has to be cancelled. Loss of trade for the country is also a hidden cost. As, as the countries have disease-free status where they can prove they've eradicated disease and, and surveillance doesn't show any disease, and this helps with trade.
Once we lose that disease-free status, we, we cannot export freely. Lots of countries will not accept not only the meat and immediate products, but also byproducts. It can have a huge economic impact.
So that disease free freedom is important to us. Then for the government, there's the cost of controlling and eventually eradicating the disease. Even a farm with a, with a local disease, there is still a cost.
There are lots of communities, global communities, animals are used for work. Communities rely on them for their livelihoods, for their services. Sanitation, construction, transport, they're really important.
And the effect of the disease amongst these would be catastrophic. Furthermore, a lot of these people that own them could not afford to lose them. They're slow to euthanize because having the animal is the difference between being able to feed their family.
Or being able to send their children to school for an education. So, some countries as well will ban slaughter, will not allow euthanasia. So these animals are just left to suffer.
Really poor welfare, poor health, it will spread further. You put zoonosis last on the list. It is actually one of the most important.
Zoonosis is the spread of infection between people and animals. It's really important and as vets, we have a duty of when we diagnose a zoonotic disease, to make sure that everybody involved with contact with that animal is protected, to give advice to owners, carers, people that will have contact, maybe vaccination, maybe reduced contact. World Health organisation have listed 200 diseases which are zoonotic.
The Health and Safety Executive in the UK have listed around 40 zoonotic diseases, and they estimate 300,000 people are vulnerable to these diseases as a result of their occupation. So we must have a good Zoonotic control programme in place to protect our staff also to protect other people. It's worth noting that back in 2017, WOWA, the World organisation for Animal Health, recognised that biosecurity is really important, both for disease prevention, also for control.
And they agreed to develop a new chapter dedicated to biosecurity and terrestrial animals. At the end of this PowerPoint, you'll find some links to a couple of reports of the working group on that and they they make interesting reading. Let's look at another example, because I think these examples actually really make the point.
They demonstrate the messages that we're trying to get across here. The foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, a lot of you will remember it. I looked at the final report of the outbreak and the National Audit Office site.
I was really surprised. The extent of spread 48 premises plus 15 counties had had infections seeded before the disease was even suspected and reported to government, before it was confirmed. 15 counties, that's a huge geographical spread.
We were moving animals long distances right across the country at that time. But when it spread that far before we even started to control the disease spread. It's not surprising, we had problems controlling it.
It's not surprising that the outbreak lasted 221 days before we eradicated it. And the cost to the country was 8 billion pounds. The sheer escalation, the sheer geographical spread.
Makes the point about the need for good biosecurity to control the spread of disease. So who needs to practise with security? Well, these examples make it very obvious, I think, everyone, everyone, and at all times.
And the extent of the risk becomes very obvious when you look at some of these examples. Veterinary practises and veterinary centres. How many animals will have contact with a patient, carrying a pathogenic agent before patient is diagnosed and mitigation against spread put in place?
It's a question we have to ask. Look at waiting rooms in busy practises. We try to, we try to keep control, but you have owners.
You have owners and you have animals that are actually have their own behavioural moods. So you're not going to keep distance very successfully all the time. It's not only vets that need to think about this, or the professionals that are handling the animals.
You also need to think about manager, the receptionist, the cleaner. They're all at risk from zoonotic diseases. They need to protect themselves, but also have a part to play in reducing the spread of infection.
Farm vets are currently practising very strict biosecurity. We have blue tongue in the country. We have avian influenza in the country.
Foot and mouth has been confirmed in Germany fairly recently. It's not beyond the realms of possibility to, to think that actually foot and mouth infection could cross our borders. We could be infected.
We need to be alert. We need to be aware. But don't only think about vets in practise, we also need to think about vets doing policy, vets working in enforcement, vets working in academia.
We can all pass on these messages, and we, we all at times have contact with animals and need to be aware of what, what the risks are. Shows, markets and events. Well, these, these are your very high risk.
We bring animals in from all sorts of sources, often with unknown disease status. We mix them and we mix them with close contact, and then they go off again to lots of different premises. Equid events often involve international travel.
They cross borders. Are we going to miss the animal that has subclinical infection or doesn't really show infection? One example is donkeys.
They are notoriously difficult to actually detect a sick donkey. They're stoic. They tend to not show suffering, not show pain, not show illness.
We could miss infection that would then escalate, spread around the show or event. The father. Charities, NGOs, and their volunteers, do they have policies in place for biosecurity?
Are all the staff protected against zooolytic disease? Are they all aware of it? Rescue centres and sanctuaries are taking animals from very poor welfare situations, poor health situations.
They're bringing them in to other animals within their sanctuary. Are they testing for the presence of pathogenic agents, or are they quarantining these animals for a suitable period of time if they have disease, they can incubate it and it can be identified and diagnosed? Farms, studs, equestrian centres.
Dog breeders, they're all getting bigger and bigger. And There are frequent movements, not only animals, but people, on and off. The possibility of bringing contamination in is high.
As they become bigger. Farms, for instance, bringing in replacement animals from all sorts of sources from markets. As they become bigger and you have very large groups of animals, are we going to spot the animal that's sick?
Are we going to spot it before it's actually spread and there are more animals infected? The other really important thing to consider are those of us who regularly cross borders to work abroad with animals. We may believe that we are helping communities with low resources, with high levels of poverty.
We might go in, we might do preventative programmes, vaccination. We might look at foot health and, or we might even look at training and animal health workers within the community. But have we considered the potential introduction of pathogenic agents?
Have we thought about whether we are taking a pathogenic agent into a naive population? And also the risk of bringing back infection from countries where many diseases are endemic. Bio biosecurity is not confined to, or only the responsibility of vets and the animal health professionals, and I'm hoping this slide has shown, shown that well.
As vets, we have a very important role to play in the prevention of the spread of disease. We can promote good biosecurity. We can train people in what they need to do.
And we can help them to develop good practise and show that actually it's not complicated. It's quite easy and it can fit into a heavy workload. When do we need good biosecurity?
We need it all the time, at all times. We need to embed it into our daily routine. It is possible we prove we could do it during the pandemic, .
But it needs to become automatic. It needs to be something that we don't have to remind ourselves to do, that we don't have to think about. Let's look exactly of examples where the risk is heightened, and that helps actually then determine your risk areas and where you need to.
Heightened plans in place, heightened biosecurity, and generally it's with movement of animals. It's with mixing of animals. It's with movement of people between different groups of animals carrying infectious agents either on footwear, which is an obvious one, but have we thought about phones?
Have we thought about cameras, have we thought about clothes? And we need to keep up surveillance. We need to be aware of the risks and threats in our own location or across the world.
And there are some excellent websites. There are some excellent apps, apps and tools that we can use will actually report this for us. How do we mitigate against the risk?
Core to biosecurity is the use of hygiene, the use of cleansing and disinfection, the use of the correct PPE, quarantining animals where it's necessary, or using health checks on animals where they're going to be mixing on on premises or events. With CND we need to be sure we're using the right disinfectant, the right disinfectant for the specific pathogenic agent. We're not overusing disinfectant.
For instance, if we use a disinfectant that's, strong and specific to TB or to foot and mouth, we don't have the risk of that. We're overusing it and we're actually causing damage to the environment. Some of these, disinfectants are very hard on the environment and unsafe for people using them.
So we need to make sure that we're using disinfectant proportionally, proportional to the risk. If we have these mitigation in place, these practises in place, it's very easy to step up if we have an increased risk, if we need to go to strict biosecurity, if we have a high risk, and often it can be done seamlessly. What is best practise?
I believe that all premises should have a biosecurity plan, whatever their size. Large organisations may need a policy in place. You might need protocols in place.
The protocols might be part of your biosecurity plan. If you have a plan, if you have protocols, they need to be customised, they need to be relevant to you, to what you're doing to your everyday work. And they also need to be realistic.
If they're not realistic, you're going to lose the interest of your staff, of your clients and customers. They won't be engaged, they won't feel part of it. They don't need to be complex, and doesn't need to be long.
It doesn't need to be war and peace, it's got to be something that actually people have time to read within their busy workloads. We can look at our own setup. We can produce scenarios.
We can use those for training. And I can't emphasise enough training, training, training, it's so important. You can't have one training event and then leave it at that.
It's got to be regular, constant, remember new recruits, and also remember clients and customers, other organisations with contact with animals. And this is a bit of a hobby horse of mine, a plan, any biosecurity plan needs to be simple. It needs to be clear, it needs to be easy.
Otherwise people won't do it. They won't remember it, they won't do it. They're busy pushing from one job to another.
They what they'll say that they don't have time. And there's no need to make it complicated. We can, we can make it simple.
We can make it easy. And it's pointless storing a plan away in a filing cabinet where no one can see it, no one can refer to it. And I'm a great believer in clear posters and signage.
It needs to be visible. It can't be behind a pillar, it can't be behind a large piece of equipment. I There's an art to it, and I've been really lucky to work with some very skilled people, some excellent people in producing posters and sheets and signs.
And it's really important to keep it to a minimum number of words. If you have an essay, people running from one job to another can't see to read it. People like me would need to put on glasses, which you don't have with you.
So you keep to. Small short text in large font, and the very best thing are relevant illustrations. They can tell a story and they can be really good.
So keep them simple, keep them. Keep that impact, and then they will make people stop and think. If you're producing a biosecurity plan.
A good starting point is producing a map, and it doesn't need to be an architect's map or anything like that, just a simple line drawing, a simple, very simple map. Look at your entrances, look at your exits, look at other areas where you might have animals, mobile clinic, for example. Look at areas where animals will be present.
Look at areas where people will be present. Look at, look as well at where people keep their own food, their own beverages. They shouldn't have contact with animals while they're eating.
We took the direction of movement between around premises. Make it simple, look for all the areas of risk and bring everybody into this exercise because some will see risks that you haven't seen or some will actually be aware of. I says that just won't work.
When you're looking at the risk, go back to basics. Consider how disease is spread. Spread by direct contact.
Well, that's quite easy. We've talked, I've talked about the waiting room with the, dogs and cats chasing each other. But maybe it is possible to triage.
Maybe it's possible to bring those animals that are coming in for a routine vaccination, nails clipped, wounds looked at. Away from animals that are coming in because they're sick or ill. Aerosols harder to contact, to control, much harder.
And the only way you can do it really is distance. And that distance will depend on the properties of the actual pathogenic agent. It'll depend on the size of the animal as well.
How far can an animal sneeze? We looked at it in COVID, I'm not sure we got it right, but that's the basic principle, but it is hard to control. Fomites, it's unforgivable if we can't can't control this, if we can't stop contamination being spread from one area to another, from one animal to another.
In vectors Consider the insect vector. It's very hard to keep insects out of a building. And very hard to control the disease once it's in an insect population.
Often it will only be vaccination, it will help you to control it. Something to think about, something to remember. I recommend that a biosecurity plan has the different scenarios in it, the different levels of biosecurity you need.
If you've considered these, if you've put them in your plan, then it's possible to move seamlessly from one to another, and you will have been training for that as well. So a time when there's panic, because you've you've diagnosed an infected animal that's come into your surgery, for instance, or an infected animal that's been introduced to a farm. It's seamless, it's automatic step up.
You can use low risk, medium risk, high risk, as I've done here, or you can use a traffic light system. Red, amber, green, it doesn't make any difference as long as everybody understands what you've done and why you've done it. To my mind, the low risk should be done every day.
It's your prevention, you're preventing infection being introduced, you're preventing spread. It's key to everything we do. And those practises need to be automatic, need to be clear, people don't have to remember to do them, it becomes a habit.
With a medium risk, when you just need slightly, you need to step up because you suspect there might be an infected animal or that or you've seen in your surveillance tool that actually there's a threat in in the locality, you step up your biosecurity. Where there's a high risk, you need very strict biosecurity. The strictest biosecurity in place.
You need to think about movements, you might need to restrict movements. You might need to think outside the box about where you're going to examine animals, how you're going to examine them. Let's look at the response to any disease.
This is quite important as well to consider. Prevention's always gonna be the gold standard, that everyday responses to our low risk. It's key, it's paramount if we want to protect the health and welfare of animals in our care.
And I've, I've always preached prevention for any health and welfare. Yes, if we have an animal in poor health, we can treat it. If we have an animal with poor welfare, we can try and improve the situation it's in.
But isn't it always better if they don't go there in the first place, if we prevent it? But then if we have disease, let's look at how we would respond to it. The first stage is actually identifying that sick animal.
And I've spoken about the problems of actually spotting a sick animal, spotting when it's ill. But then you need to diagnose, and you might need to confirm that diagnosis. Understand the extent of the disease and understand the pathogenic agent.
And there are again lots of fact sheets, lots of tools actually looking for the properties of the different pathogenic agents so that you can know what what disinfectant to use, how the the agent is killed, or how it's, how it escalates and spreads. Once you've confirmed disease, you need to control it. For this, you need to know the extent of the disease, the extent of how far it's spread, where it is.
You need to reduce the impact of the disease that's already in a population or an area. And movement's a really important thing to consider as well as your disinfection of biosecurity. Eradication, again, we would always hope to eliminate the pathogenic agent from stables farm, and that's what we're working towards.
Where this is a national outbreak of an exotic notifiable disease, government rely on vets on the ground to identify a case, to identify it and to notify them. They will then do the sampling, the tests, and confirm disease if it's if it's present. Immediately they confirm disease or sometimes at the suspect phase, they will put movement restrictions in place.
And this will often be under around a specific geographical area which may later extend. They will carry out surveillance, statistical sampling and testing of animals, susceptible animals within the geographic area, to see the extent of the disease, to know what they need to control. Once they have it in control, they will introduce licencing for movements, and these will come with specific conditions.
And that's something that vets on the ground may also be very much involved in. It's very important, this movement control might have a huge effect on the owners and keepers of the animals, but it's so important in any control of disease. Eradication is also important, being able to return the country to a disease-free state so that trade can continue.
So there isn't that economic hit. And again, this might involve a statistical sampling of animals surveillance to make sure that we no longer have disease in the country. But also consider the non-notifiable cases.
Strangles is a really good example. Once it's introduced into an establishment, it's so difficult to control. It's highly contagious.
And once you, once you've diagnosed it, you need to follow these same principles. It works. Diagnose it.
Reduce movements, stop movements if you can. Make sure that people use really strict biosecurity when they're moving on and off. Testing, do that surveillance.
See how many animals are infected. Especially with strangles, you need to detect those carry out animals. You then control, control, look at the properties of the bacteria.
Look at what disinfectants you need to, to control it, to kill it. Where how it might spread, what the epidemiology is. And then look at eliminating it from that premises.
Once you understand these responses, it's very easy to actually apply it. To different scenarios. And as with everything, we need to be aware of the benefits so that we can sell this, and so that we can persuade.
Customers, clients, our staff, ourselves in actually following good biosecurity. Also, those of us with, contacts, working in different countries, we can promote it to governments, we can promote it to communities in this country, especially where working animals are relied upon. For ourselves as professionals, there's a reputational benefit.
If we're seen to be practising good biosecurity, it's our reputation. We're setting an example. We're actually showing people what they should be doing, how they can do it, and how it can be fitted into a very heavy working day.
This is invisible training. You're training people without telling them that you're training them. They are watching you.
They are seeing what you do, and often you can persuade them it's a very good idea to do the same. And we have the economics, which we covered, we've covered really well, cost of treatment, loss of production, loss of trade. To the animal, the benefits are a given.
We, we, we should be concerned about the health and welfare. We will be concerned. We need to actually sell this to the owners and the keepers as well.
But to people, the loss of animals, their emotional loss, the effect on their well-being, but also their resorting livelihood. And the risk of actually. Coming in contact with a zoonotic disease, becoming infected with a zoonotic disease.
So I think, can we offer advice and support to our clients to produce biosecurity plans as a service? I think we can, and I think we should. I think we should be addressing this, and we should actually be helping our clients, our customers, organisations with contact with animals to practise good biosecurity and put plans in place.
So thank you for listening and I hope it's been useful. As I said before, if there is a demand for more detail for supporting building contingency plans by security plans, then we can certainly look at this according to the demand. These links provide interest in reading.
The DA link has the contingency plans for the different exotic noteargal diseases in the UK. And it's often good to know what to expect, to know how you yourself might be involved, might be affected. And they're updated regularly.
And I need to thank the Donkey Sancre because I've borrowed a lot of their images for this presentation. Thanks very much. Goodbye.