Workshop: So what do these test results mean? And is the treatment I’m about to recommend right | Scott McDougall, Chris Compton & Mark Stevenson
This workshop will be of interest to veterinarians and laboratory scientists with an interest in animal disease testing, diagnoses and health, whether they are clinicians, or in government, laboratory or advisory roles. The workshop will be of particular interest to those interested in undertaking membership of the Australia New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists. The learning objectives align with those of the membership examination in Veterinary Epidemiology of the ANZCVS which include having a sound knowledge of the application of diagnostic tests including test sensitivity and specificity, the effect of prevalence of disease within a population on tests characteristics, the ability to calculate sensitivity, specificity, negative and positive predictive value, apparent and true prevalence, and to discuss the impact of prevalence of disease in a population of animals on selection of an appropriate test. Practical examples will be provided of interpretation of test results at an individual animal and population level, and software tools will be provided and discussed which allow calculation and assessment of the implication of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of a test, or a series of tests. A combination of lectures and interactive tutorials will be used to teach the course. The tutors are experienced teachers and have clinical and academic skills and qualifications ensuring the relevance and practicality of the course.
African swine fever: a New Zealand perspective | Lynsey Earl, Leigh Sinclair, Andrew McFadden & Mark Eames | 8am
A New Zealand perspective on the African Swine Fever pandemic. A short description of the disease followed by the current global distribution, situation in the Pacific region, including response to outbreaks in Papua New Guinea, and the measures that MPI are taking to manage the risk of entry to New Zealand. Also, a discussion on post-border surveillance for ASF and modelling disease spread in NZ’s feral pig population..
ASF and truck biosecurity | Bruce Welch | 9am
Transport biosecurity is an important factor that impacts heavily on the potential for spread of both exotic diseases in outbreak situations and endemic disease present within New Zealand. Examples of measures taken in other countries as well as those employed in some sectors in New Zealand (with the pig industry as the primary subject) are shared along with concerns and opportunities facing the NZ livestock sector.
FeedSafeNZ: what does it mean for animal feed in NZ? | Michael Brooks | 9.20am
Emotions influence employees commitment, creativity, decision making, quality of work and, the likelihood of sticking around. You can see the effects of these on your bottom line. So, how do we start talking about emotion in the workplace in a way that moves beyond ‘hint and hope’ to intentional conversations to elicit engagement and commitment?
Protecting your patch: what veterinarians can do to help farmers improve their biosecurity | Will Halliday | 9.40am
Biosecurity means different things to different people, and all too often we hear that it’s “MPI’s problem” or “the government’s responsibility”. But the reality is that biosecurity does not stop at the border – it’s everybody’s responsibility to prevent the spread of unwanted pests and diseases. When we consider biosecurity we mustn’t limit our thinking to exotic diseases like FMD, or even established ones like bovine TB; significant gains can be made by adopting simple pathway management strategies to limit or prevent the spread of endemic pests and diseases. By viewing the farm boundary as a border and applying sound biosecurity principles to all cross-border interactions, we can safeguard the farm business from current and future incursions. If everyone does their bit, then we all win.
Find, contain, control (Mycoplasma bovis) | Amy Burroughs | 10.30am
Since its first detection in New Zealand in 2017, as at 17 February 2022 there have been a total of 272 properties confirmed as infected with Mycoplasma bovis. A single total does not describe the epidemiology of the infection nor the progress the M. bovis Programme has made towards eradication. Here the what, where and how surrounding these infected farms are discussed as well as an explanation of what lies ahead in terms of achieving the three goals of MPI, DairyNZ, and Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s M. bovis National Plan.
Associations between antimicrobial sales and resistance | Scott McDougall | 11.10am
The associations between antimicrobial sales and the likelihood that the minimum inhibitory concentrations for a range of antimicrobials against Staph aureus and Strep uberis being above the epidemiological cutpoints was examined using the data from 245 herd years of veterinary authorisation for which the dairy antibiogram MIC data were also available. A number of positive associations between antimicrobial prescribing and an elevated MIC were observed
Antimicrobial stewardship in human health: time to lift our game | Sharon Gardiner | 1.30pm
Antimicrobial use drives antimicrobial resistance. In contrast to animal health, antimicrobial use in human health in Aotearoa New Zealand is high, and much is inappropriate.This presentation will outline our initial fragmented antimicrobial stewardship efforts in human health and highlight the significant gaps that need to be filled to help slow progression of antimicrobial resistance. his includes a need for leadership, co-ordinated activities, tools, benchmarking, and collaborative working within and beyond the human health sector.
AMR across host species – One stomach, One Health? | Ruth Zadoks | 2pm
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is often presented as a One Health problem but there is mixed evidence for animals’ contribution to AMR as a public health threat. Here, evidence from East Africa and elsewhere will be considered, including data from people, ruminants and monogastrics (production and companion animal species). AMR is more common in the monogastrics, leading to the untested but tantalising suggestion that ruminants may be bioremediators rather than polluters.
The regulator and management of antimicrobial resistance | Warren Hughes | 2.30pm
This presentation will outline past and present activities to manage antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by the regulator of antimicrobials and other veterinary medicines and agricultural compounds under the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act. It will also cover some statistics and trends.
Antibiotic use in the New Zealand pork industry | Bruce Welch | 3pm
Trends in antibiotic use in New Zealand poultry | Kerry Mulqueen | 3.15pm
The NZ Poultry Industry continues to reduce its use of antibiotics. This year, 2022, the use of antimicrobials will be 90% less than in 2019. The industry has developed and adapted to reduce the amount of antibiotics used by poultry while still maintain bird health, welfare, and production.
One Health in everyday practice | Kurt Arden | 4pm
The challenges of working in large animal clinical practice with a ‘One health’ approach.
One Health panel discussion | Tennielle Ellingham, Kerry Mulqueen, Warren Hughes, Ruth Zadoks, Bruce Welch & Kate Hill | 4.30pm
Modernisation of meat inspection | Sergio Ghidini | 8am
Meat inspection was born at the end of the nineteenth century in Germany in order to stop the transmission of tuberculosis, brucellosis and cysticercosis from animals to men via food. It was an easy and effective task that veterinarians could perform just by using their senses in slaughterhouses. Though these “classical” hazards still present they are nowadays managed in different ways and the hazards that meat inspection have to cover have totally changed with new ones not showing specific symptoms. Such hazards require moving from the control of the final product to an integrated control of meat production chains. Moreover, other areas such as animal health and welfare have to be covered by modern meat inspection. Italy is working on an integrated system called CLASSYFARM to cover all these subjects.
Game changing phone apps for rabies control at scale | Andy Gibson | 8.30am
Rabies continues to have a dramatic impact on the lives of people at the margins of society around the world, but the virus remains largely out of the limelight and fails to gain the traction needed to ignite large-scale control efforts. This talk presents the experience and operational research findings of Mission Rabies, working to understand and overcome the remaining practical obstacles to implementing effective control strategies. Particular focus will be given to the transformative technological innovations revealing the true extent of the problem at the field level and creating opportunities for ours to take leaps toward global elimination of the canine rabies virus.
Infectious bursal disease incursion 2019: detection, control, and trade mitigation | Angela Park | 9am
In 2019 infectious bursal disease (IBD) was detected on two Otago layer farms during routine surveillance and confirmed to be caused by IBD virus Type 1 (IBDV1). A viral disease of chickens, IBDV1 is also known as Gumboro disease and is an OIE-listed pathogen. This presentation will discuss detection, biosecurity measures taken, the eventual successful elimination, and the trade impacts and their resolution.
Towards understanding leptospirosis: an interdisciplinary approach | Jackie Benschop | 9.30am
It is well recognised that understanding zoonoses requires collaboration between medical and veterinary scientists, but the value of te ao Māori and social science in zoonoses research is often not considered. Leptospirosis is a globally important multi-host, multi-pathogen zoonosis which despite extensive nationwide intervention measures, remains an unacceptable burden on New Zealanders particularly those living in rural communities. I will present our work on leptospirosis to illustrate the many joys and few tribulations of interdisciplinary research
Update on national BVD control activities | Andrew Weir | 10.30am
MPI have formed a new group to deal with endemic diseases in NZ. This endemic disease group have formed an Endemic Disease Forum with various representatives from various stakeholder groups like DairyNZ, Beef & Lamb, NZVA, and the BVD steering committee. They are also looking at options to set up a voluntary BVD control programme soon, in cooperation with the BVD Steering Committee. This presentation will report the current state of progress and planning at the time of the conference.
What 15 years of research tells us about farm dogs | Naomi Cogger | 11am
Many of New Zealand’s 25,000 sheep and beef farms could not be farmed economically if they did not use dogs to move stock. Despite the value of these dogs, until recently there has been little research to understand their health and welfare. In 2008, the Working Dog Centre was formed to help address the gap. This presentation will describe the epidemiologic studies that have been conducted, discuss the methodological challenges, and highlight the future research needs.
The red meat industry’s response to the pandemic and implications for post-Covid-19 trade | Sirma Karapeeva | 11.30am
The presentation will provide an overview of New Zealand’s red meat processing, marketing and export industry as well as its economic and social wellbeing contribution to New Zealand. The presentation will then examine what happened during the COVID-19 outbreaks in New Zealand and how the industry responded to the changing environment so as to continue to operate and export New Zealand meat and co-products to the world. The success factors that continued to the industry’s Covid-19 response will be examined as will some of the on-going challenges facing the industry. Finally, the presentation will outline the range of initiatives the industry is putting in place to overcome the challenges and position itself for a sustainably profitable future.”
The MPI market access trade response to COVID-19 | Rochelle Ferguson | 11.50am
The COVID-19 global pandemic has had a significant impact on New Zealand’s trade in primary industry products. This presentation will focus on the MPI Market Access COVID-19 trade response. It will set out how this trade response differed from a traditional response framework, discuss the international trade issues that exporters faced at the beginning of the pandemic, and an overview of the market access work to mitigate these issues.
So you’re not a real vet anymore? | Mary van Andel | 12.10pm
An exploration of the range of essential non-clinical roles that veterinarians serve in seen through the lens of my experiences in the Ministry for Primary Industries.
Update on animal welfare regulations | Richard Wild | 1.30pm
New Zealand was the first country in the world to recognise animal sentience in its animal welfare legislation – the Animal Welfare Act Amendment Bill 2015. The Amendment Bill also allowed for the development of Regulations to improve the range of compliance tools available to the regulator additional to Codes of Welfare or prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act 1999. This presentation will discuss the experience of MPI in developing and implementing the Care and Procedures Animal Welfare regulations as an additional tool in the response to animal welfare issues in livestock production species. It will also discuss the developments in animal welfare science. The 5 Domains model is now increasingly used to assess the welfare status of a wide range of species in quite different circumstances. The model facilitates a structured, systematic evaluation of animals negative and positive experiences the overall balance of which underlies their welfare status or quality of life. MPI and NAWAC are currently reviewing the Codes of Welfare and there is an expectation that sentience and the 5 Domains Model will be to the forefront as these Codes are reviewed.
Veterinarians can use the Five Domains Model every day to assess animal welfare | Kat Littlewood | 2pm
Veterinarians are ideally situated to act as animal welfare experts by virtue of our core work with animals, influence over owners, and roles in policy development, compliance, monitoring, and education. Veterinarians need to know what animal welfare is and how it can be scientifically assessed. The Five Domains Model is an animal welfare assessment framework that can be used every day by veterinarians to integrate contemporary understanding of animal welfare science into our profession.
CIMS: coordinated incident management systems | Jessica Shelgren | 2.30pm
How can a CIMS response impact veterinarians? Can they help? Do they know when to get out of the way? This communication will explain CIMS, how it works and how veterinarians can help prepare for unforeseen events, help clients and communities prepare their businesses, animals and animal production units as well as be aware of what may be required of veterinarians whether to assist or stay out of the way.
Pig welfare | Bruce Welch | 3pm
The housing regulations in place in various countries around the world and the range of NZ housing systems are discussed. Sentient-based approaches to assessing pig welfare are being explored globally and hold potential to further improve the welfare of farmed pigs. Changes in housing to accommodate these approaches can at times precipitate conflicts with provision of the 5 freedoms. These need to be identified and managed carefully to achieve the best overall welfare outcome for the pigs
Implications of Salmonella Enteritidis infections and its control measures | Kat Govender | 3.30pm
This presentation provides a snapshot of Salmonella Enteritidis cases in animals and humans in New Zealand over the past two decades. Focus is placed on the latest incursion that involved animals and humans. It highlights the implications of Salmonella Enteritidis infections which can negatively impact human and animal health, food safety and overseas market access. It was therefore crucial that control measures be implemented to mitigate these risks.