One World - One Health: The Threat of Emerging Swine Diseases. An Asian Perspective

Owing to the expanding globalization, the trans-boundary spread of an epizootic can easily result from uncontrolled animal movements and human traffic. Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a major trans-boundary disease in most Asian countries. Its sporadic re-emergence suggests that collaborative FMD control strategies should be uniformly implemented in endemic countries to ensure the overall national herd vaccination coverage, biocontainment when outbreaks occur, and strict biosecurity control of animal movement between countries. Sustained commitments from governments, cooperative diplomatic relationships, and public awareness campaigns are critical to FMD control, to ensure collaboration among veterinarians, traders and farmers throughout Southeast Asia (SEA). Recently, highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (HP-PRRS) and porcine epidemic diarrhoea (PED) spread from China to Southeast Asian countries, causing major economic losses. Foot and mouth disease, HP-PRRS, and PED currently remain endemic and may continue to sporadically re-emerge, owing to inadequate public health management and/or biosecurity failures. Therefore, the risk factors must be identified to better understand the epidemiology of these diseases in an effort to develop effective control measures. International coordination through the establishment of a collaborative network supported by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) should be implemented to prevent trans-boundary transmission among countries. This review discusses trans-boundary swine diseases of particular importance to SEA, including FMD, HP-PRRS and PED, with a primary focus on major factors contributing to the spread of these diseases and important control measures, reflecting the impact of globalization on disease control and surveillance.