How does site limit potential entry of disease vectors?
Vectors are agents that can carry a disease from one animal to another. Every farm must have a biosecurity plan to decrease the risk of disease spread by limiting the access of vectors into the farm. Common disease vectors are people, pests, equipment, vehicles, mortalities, and the livestock itself when it is moved between farms.
Nebraska Extension provides a guide of The Five Things Every Livestock Farmer Should Know About Biosecurity, summarized as:
- If it moves, it can carry diseases: Animals, workers, trucks, farm equipment, pests, clothing, employee vehicles are all possible disease vectors. Therefore, farm security plans must acknowledge that any moving agent can be a vector.
- A person can be a vector for an animal disease even if the disease is not zoonotic. Although several diseases cannot infect humans, but humans can still transmit them by carrying infected materials (usually manure) between farms.
- Even pets like dogs can carry diseases just by being in contact with infected materials.
- Limiting traffic on the farm is one of the best measures for ensuring biosecurity: The fewer people entering a farm, the less chance there is of diseases spreading. Signage should include: a single-entry point to the farm; biosecurity signs; well identified main office; and biosecurity visitor rules to decrease disease risk.
- Implementing an effective on-farm biosecurity plan can be costly, but not nearly as costly as losing some or all of the livestock on a farm to a disease. Dr. Schmidt says, “A biosecurity plan is sort of like an insurance policy; it is an investment that you cannot afford not to have. A well-designed and well implemented biosecurity plan is not an absolute guarantee against infectious diseases entering the farm, but it can reduce the risk substantially”.
UNL provides these additional guides for biosecurity in cattle, poultry and swine operations.
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