Recently the University of Missouri Extension Animal Disease Outbreak Prevention Workshop and the Missouri State Fair were venues demonstrating a model biosecurity trailer. The University developed the trailer using grants from the USDA Extension Risk Management Education Program and from the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program.
The trailer demonstrates the minimal entry requirements for workers and visitors entering a small swine or poultry operation. This so-called “Danish entry” system developed in Europe and now widely used in the U.S. in some form or other is better than no biosecurity. It is however inadequate to achieve a level of biosecurity required to exclude a catastrophic viral disease.
Expenditure on biosecurity should be a function of the risk of introducing a specific disease, the efficacy of the protection provided by the installation and the clinical and financial consequences of a disease entering the herd or flock. Investment in biosecurity should demonstrate a long-term positive return on expenditure and operation, discounting annual benefits and applying a realistic cost of capital. The design of installations for structural biosecurity and implementation of operational biosecurit