Farmscape for November 16, 2020
The Swine Health Information Center is offering guidance to pork producers considering the use of ultraviolet light-C as a disinfectant in swine barns.
A Swine Health Information Center working group, struck to review ultraviolet light-C best practices for bio-exclusion on the Farm, has issued a report which provides guidance on how UV light can be used to keep pathogens from being introduced into a swine herd.
SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg explains the working group examined UVC properties, related equipment, practices, and pathogens in an effort to determine best practices for the use of ultraviolet light for bio-exclusion on the farm.
Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
UVC, ultraviolet light is a set of wavelengths.
There are different wavelengths of ultraviolet light, there's a UVA, UVB and UVC.
Ultraviolet light-C is a specific wavelength that is being used in the pork industry and other industries as well, medical fields, all around as a disinfectant.
We know that there are a variety of different materials out there but we think that more so even than the different types of technical lights there are and facilities there are, whether they're boxes or rooms or what ever they are, we want to make sure people have lines on the side of the road if you will and have some guidelines about their use.
That's a very important thing.
If you're going to use these, they need to be used correctly.
That includes setting up the chamber, it includes keeping them clean, it includes the expectations for what you're going to do even for safety precautions for using these.
We want to make sure people have good information about those guidelines and those best practices as they go to put these things in as a biosecurity measure on the farm.
Both a fact sheet on the use of UVC light on farm and the working group's full report can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
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Bruce Cochrane.
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