USDA Releases Summary of IAV-S Surveillance Program Reviews

April 27, 2016 — 

In 2010, USDA implemented the Influenza Virus A in Swine (IAV-S) Surveillance Program with funding APHIS received through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a fiscal year (FY) 2009 supplemental appropriation. That funding source will likely be exhausted during FY 2016.

Anticipating this change in IAV-S resources, pork industry representatives inquired in late 2014 what APHIS’ plans were for the program going forward and expressed their support of its continuation. Subsequently, the Veterinary Services (VS) Deputy Administrator’s Office requested an assessment to determine what results had been achieved by the program to date; analyze what changes were needed, if any, as IAV-S surveillance is transitioned into part of a larger comprehensive swine surveillance program; and provide insight into future budget formulation efforts. The assessment was conducted by the APHIS Program Assessment and Accountability (PAA) unit. The executive summary is posted on the APHIS IAV-S web site.

In this review, the PAA describes the achievements and outcomes generated through enhanced IAV-S surveillance activities led by APHIS since 2009. The report also summarizes program, cooperator, and key stakeholder views on the current and desired future state of IAV-S surveillance in the United States. In addition, the report identifies primary cost factors driving the program’s budget, information that may assist in future resource planning.

An external review assessing the more technical aspects of the program, and their scientific merit, was conducted by Ian Gardner, BVSc, MPVM, PhD from the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island. An executive summary of this review was recently released by USDA. The recommendations outlined in the summary report include:

• Identify failure/inefficiency points throughout the existing program and strategies that might be feasible to implement in order to improve program efficiency.
• Undertake a cost-effective analysis of the testing algorithm and this task should include deciding on the most appropriate number of samples for full-genome sequencing to achieve program objectives
• Develop an impacts statement for internal and external stakeholders that summarizes and promotes the animal and public health benefits of the current program; this should include data on how influenza isolates have been used by biologics companies
• Develop a strategy for increasing accessions from the traceable stream, including use of incentives and perhaps shifting responsibility and costs to the swine industry; this may include having the swine industry provide representative regional samples to ensure adequate geographical coverage of the U.S. herd
• Agree as to what epidemiological analyses are realistic with the currently-available data or after modification of the program, given the reluctance of the swine industry to allow state-level analyses
• Provide more explicit description of goals, objectives, and outcomes/deliverables for a revised program including a reassessment of the importance of geographical coverage and representativeness as part of the programmatic goals
• Define key attributes and associated metrics for a revised program
• Develop case-definitions that include genomic data at the sample, pig, and herd levels for purposes of epidemiological analysis
• Develop a comprehensive data management system to allow more streamlined integration of data from multiple sources, including laboratory and field data

VS management intends to combine the results of both reviews to aid future program planning and funding deliberations.