Researchers at the University of California-Davis have created a bioportal, a place where information on a variety of diseases from all over the nation and the world can be combined into one place. The idea was of great interest at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica 4th PRRS ARC&E Seminar at the International PRRS Symposium (and we’ll talk more later how the folks at BIVI want to use it). Dr. Andres Perez, a veterinary epidemiologist at Cal-Davis, told Chuck during an interview that their bioportal helps control diseases by combining information into one place.
“One of the challenges that we have is to identify what is a new introduction of a virus. Then we can make a distinction between outbreaks from circulation of the disease within the farm versus a new introduction,” Perez said. He added this real-time tool is particularly helpful with something like PRRS, and they have been working with BIVI and the PRRS control group to see how the bioportal could be helpful in the eradication of PRRS. “We are developing prototypes right now with the idea to scale it up to include some progressive control programs and later on, statewide and nationwide.”
Perez said that the system is less than 1 percent of production costs… very cost effective when you consider how much an outbreak might cost.
Listen to Chuck’s interview with Dr. Perez here: Interview with Dr. Andres Perez