Animal health (1986)

this is good positive staining Jane let's hope this one is negative possibly swing people five five years well you're the one on the spot now whose fault was it again John Dustin's thus oh yeah he's a few months what do you think I saw a lot of swine fever back in the early 1960s any Swan fever for donkey's ears oh if he was scarce but nothing confirmed let's hope the same goes for here let's go into your office and I'll telephone the divisional veterinary office and what happens then John Dustin was a wounded man some days ago he sent for Nicholas Johnson his private Veterinary practitioner a batch of pigs bought from the local market but off their food scouting listless some had lost the use of their hind legs one had died Nicholas Johnson was worried about the possibility of swine fever a notifiable disease a mass killer of hurt he reported his suspicion to the divisional Veterinary officer brought them through the local market as well look thank you for this prompt notification can you stay there for an hour at all good and I'll send a video for a consultation visit Jim Randall Jim Randall is a Veterinary officer he works from a local animal health office a part of Britain's State Veterinary service this office alone is responsible for a farm population of a million poultry 55 000 sheep 85 000 pigs and some 87 000 cattle when Jim Randall arrives at the farm he will first examine the pigs then conduct a postmortem well shall we go to the office it'll be better hard I'm sorry Nate it looks very much like it I'll get these specimens off to the lab straight away so will you be suing for me more than likely I'll have to give head officer ring first oh no well look John let's take it one step at a time yeah all right we'll be able to bury the pigs on the farm oh yeah no problem though I've got a man who works part-time he does Tuesdays and Thursdays on another Farm will that be all right you won't be able to go there until we've finished here and the restrictions are lifted form a seals off the farm and will stay in effect until the threat is over get on the back gate John yes I'll just go and check it contingency plans to Monitor and control any outbreak start from the moment as suspected notifiable disease has been reported the state veteran service lost no time in setting up their National operations room swine fever can decimate herds and spread like wildfire yes that's right both the animal virus Estate Institute and the Central Veterinary laboratory have already been aware but they want to know when the diagnostic materials arriving how is it coming do you know or by Courier that's fine now if you can tell me when he's going to arrive I'll alert the Laboratories okay right that's fine the Central Veterinary laboratory way Bridge post-mortem samples from John durston's Farm have arrived first they're prepared for the series of tests these will confirm or eliminate the threat of the disease if all are positive then Britain has an outbreak of swine fever the all its consequences a frozen section is mounted on a slide in preparation for a fluorescent antibody test this is the first of three concurrent tests within ours it will show if the virus is present in the tissue sample the slide is fixed in acetone then stained with a conjugate which will fluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet light the second test aims to isolate the virus by culturing samples from the postmortem tissues are ground and the suspension is prepared this is inoculated into a solution containing live Pig kidney cells if swine fever is present in the inoculum then the virus will infect them however it will take three days to incubate the virus the final confirmation will be from a serological test the State Veterinary Service must cover a lot of ground in a country with an important livestock industry Veterinary and Animal Health officers regularly visit all livestock markets in that area they supervise standards of construction maintenance and Tech animals for obvious signs of notifiable disease or injuries which cause distress that may render the Munford for sale indeed we do yes it was now to County debt but certainly it has been the field service assisted by the investigation and laboratory services is largely concerned with the prevention and control of notifiable animal disease although Animal Welfare is a part of the vocation of all Veterinary surgeons the State Veterinary service has statutory responsibilities for the welfare of farm animals there are also the many eec regulations to be enforced starting back on that's okay now the SVS must cover all main ports Britain is a major exporter of farm animals and animal products if a notifiable disease is confirmed then the eec and other countries will impose restrictions these will remain in force until they are satisfied that the situation is well under control with exports Veterinary and Animal Health officers are concerned with both the health and the condition of all farm animals before their travels are closely monitored the animals must be fit and healthy properly rested and fed with Imports the object is to prevent disease from entering the country at the task of disease prevention and control is labor intensive so SVS resources are augmented by local veterinary inspectors they are private practitioners who serve on a part-time basis is the one that I'm a little bit worried about he's changed temperament over the last couple of days if you get any worse that's difficult to say but I've told the staff that they mustn't go in just feeding water him from outside through the door and to hose the kennel down from outside as well now coming up the threat of animal disease always lurks somewhere biding its time waiting for the right opportunity and conditions to strike again it has taken all of the century to suppress disease and without constant monitoring and supervision many infections would again achieve a foothold it was such an outbreak that prompted the birth of the State Veterinary service over a hundred years ago between 1865 and 1867 a devastating outbreak of cattle plague rinderpest swept the country it grew to become a national disaster and in 1865 the privy Council created the cattle plague Department to cope with the epidemic and bring it under control the outbreak followed the lifting of a ban on live cattle Imports and the new expanding Railway system helped to spread the disease throughout the land before long it became a major political issue a Veterinary laboratory service was formed in 1894 its function to confirm diagnoses and to research into disease prevention and eradication the demands on the service group and in 1917 the Central Veterinary laboratory was established at weybridge since then the premises have expanded so has the reputation and expertise of the CDL which is now an internationally recognized Veterinary Laboratory a food and agriculture organization and World Health Organization brucellosis Center this looks a reasonable sample there's a little bit of physical damage along the front here but the majority of the Villi are in good shape and one can just detect surface doming of the interest sites the CVL is an international Reference Laboratory for Newcastle disease for the office International Days episode Paris the CDL also manages the Ministry of Agriculture cattle breeding center at shinfield supervising its commercial artificial insemination service for cattle and pigs the national brucellations testing program is aided by this equipment which can cope with as many as 12 000 samples a day using the rose Bengal test a red reading shows a positive reaction and the sample will be subjected to further tests before the diagnosis is confirmed some hours have now passed since the post-mortem samples from John Dustin's Pig were prepared for tests the frozen section is now ready for examination but first a positive control slide prepared from laboratory samples of tissues infected with swine fever is viewed with ultraviolet light the infected cells fluoresce let's hope that this one is negative now that the microscope is aligned the post-mortem sample is viewed no fluorescence the frozen section from John burston's Farm has not revealed swine fever this is negative but this fluorescent antibody test or fat is still not conclusive further two days incubation must elapse before the virus isolation test is completed yes a bit of good news the fat is negative no no the results of the virus isolation test won't be available for a couple of days yet so we can't make it a final decision until then what another dead pig this morning anyway how are you getting along with the local pressing exercise I understand these pigs were brought through the market has the tracing begun yet hey parallel with the laboratory investigation field service is busy tracing the origin of the infection Market authorities together with the local Authority keep records of all sales Dale farm near Market raising Lincolnshire the batch of pigs in question came from the Lincolnshire area 305 if John Dustin pigs have swine fever and other herbs are infected as well then the SVS will be involved on a national scale the operations room is online to the cbl's computer which helps with the planning and the use of resources in notifiable Disease Control it is now three days since the post-mortem samples from John thurston's Farm arrived at the CVL and the virus isolation culture is ready for examination if swine fever is present its virus will have infected the live Pig kidney cells negative again provisional diagnosis confirmed thankfully this pig certainly look a lot better the thread is receding then puzzling textbook symptoms and I've seen it before I know but the fat and bias isolation have both been negative I think the times come to investigate Alternatives as a cause for this problem any ideas well salmonella colorize this is a distinct possibility symptoms because I've got to get home yes I know I know Mr Jesse it'll be in about 10 days we've got to wait for the results of serological tests provided if we can clear the form of swine fever infection in the meantime we carry on with the antibiotics right the antibiotics in the drinking water seem to have prevented further cases yes I think we certainly should continue with them until I've completed my investigation well I've got a license to take a pig from the farm to the vi Center for postmortem VI or Veterinary investigation centers have a wide experience of the investigation and diagnosis of disease and Advising on its control and prevention they're strategically cited across the country to arrive at a diagnosis VI centers make full use of their well-equipped Laboratories virology bacteriology serology parasitology samples are submitted for investigation by private feds who pay for the service in a recent year one VI Center alone received over forty thousand specimens all results are computerized and the Vida or Veterinary investigation diagnosis analysis records provide data in statistics advice hygienic disposal of the product apart from assisting their colleagues in the field service VI centers offer their expertise to Farmers through their own vets May reduce further losses the Eye Centers are not either retired module that part and parcel of the Agricultural community that help with education too some Veterinary students from a nearby University learn how data is used to assist in Disease Control over a number of years quite inflamed now that two out of the three CVL tests are negative an alternative investigation is in progress a VI Center has been asked to make a differential diagnosis to establish the cause of the disease June Evans a Veterinary investigation officer starts from scratch by performing a new post-motive she collects intestinal samples the magic the vi center now suspects salmonella to be the cause of infection on John thurston's Farm bacteria cultured from a post-mortem specimen are mixed on a slide with serum specific to salmonella the test works by the attraction of like to like and this agglutination confirms the presence of salmonella by repeating this test with Sierra containing subgroups of salmonella serotype can finally be identified salmonella color research great thanks very much it's salmonella quality shoes salmonella color eye series well at least it's not swine people right the serological tests are negative as others conducted by the animal virus Research Institute at perbrite which tests for Africa swine fever John derston is back in business he needs to be because there's no compensation for loss of trade for the SVS the job remains unfinished Veterinary officers from the Lincoln Animal Health office had visited the farm which sold the pigs through the market and as far as I can see they look healthy to me I think you're in the clear they found no evidence of disease John thurston's problem turns out to be a salmonella we haven't actually been able to find a source on the farm we're wondering if there's any possibility for Lorry contact we know there's been an outbreak at Ford farm on the outskirts of ilkley do you recollect visiting those premises in the last three or four weeks I've got a record of it can we have a look see if I can cheers but a further outbreak of salmonella colorized serious infection on a farm some 20 miles from John Burston provides the Breakthrough some weeks previously a farmer had had his herd treated for salmonella the bi Center had identified the bacteria and notified the public health authorities so the investigation now focuses on transport the same hornier carried John durstan's pigs it had not been properly cleaned and still contained the feces of infected pigs the swine fever emergency is now over which is just as well British agriculture is an important sector of the national economy and an outbreak of notifiable disease can paralyze the farming community and have a serious effect on our valuable export trade in livestock and animal products from the great cattle plague of 1865 to today Britain State Veterinary service has played a central role in the success of British farmers it's Laboratories in research have earned the service in enviable international reputation and it is frequently used as a model by developing countries Farmers no longer feel threatened by the constant fear of a mass epidemic the high health status of the British farm animal population has been achieved by the collaboration of the veterinary profession and the farming community I've been married 117. today the SBS as part of the Ministry of Agriculture fisheries and Food rises to a further challenge the growing public concern over farm animal welfare and in doing so continues its long tradition of serving both the farming community and society as a whole beef animal the animal that is going to win the out of challenge cup for the best beef animal this year goes to a Lincoln rail he's from manly Farms he's won a whole lot of championships here before thank you