BIOSECURE, towards enhanced and cost-effective biosecurity in livestock production
Biosecurity is key for disease control in animals, but in the livestock industry there is still much to be done to improve its application. BIOSECURE, a new European project involving researchers from the Animal Health Area of the Department of Animal Health and Anatomy of the UAB, aims to develop and improve biosecurity plans to help farmers and veterinarians in the task of maintaining animal health.
Coordinated by Ghent University, BIOSECURE is a forthcoming four-year project supported by the European Union with a budget of 5 million euros and 19 participating partners, from 12 European countries. One of these participant partners is the UAB, providing more than 350,000 euros to the project.
Biosecurity is critical for management of animal health and disease control however, implementation at farm level remains often insufficient. Therefore, the objective of the BIOSECURE project is to enable decision-makers in livestock farming to understand, prioritise and implement evidence-based, cost-effective and sustainable biosecurity management systems.
This will be carried out through various work packages and tasks that include: i) reviewing the current understanding of biosecurity throughout the livestock production chain, ii) quantifying the impact of biosecurity practices on the prevention of infection and spread of disease and iii) enhancing current biosecurity measures, as well as expanding on these by carrying out field studies and performing experiments. In addition, iv) the socio-economic impact of the BIOSECURE project will be assessed and v) stakeholder engagement will be facilitated to support knowledge transfer and implementation of key exploitable results. The new or enhanced biosecurity management systems developed in the BIOSECURE project will help farmers of various animal species (pigs, poultry, cattle, small ruminants) and of different production types (indoor-outdoor) to keep animals healthy.
Researchers from the Àrea de Sanitat Animal of the UAB Departament de Sanitat i d’Anatomia Animal will participate in the project quantifying the impact of biosecurity practices on the prevention of infection and spread of pathogens. This will be done with mathematical models of risk analysis, the results of which will be applied to different farms that the researchers will monitor over time. Therefore, they will be able to assess the impact of prevention on farm health.
Animal Health Area
Department of Animal Health and Anatomy
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
References
Enhanced and cost-effective biosecurity in livestock production - BIOSECURE. DOI: 10.3030/101083923. Grant agreement ID: 101083923
