Hi, I'm Becky Gosling. I'm a senior research scientist at the Animal and Plant Health Agency. I lead the DFA Disinfectant approval scheme and research into the use of disinfectants on farm.

So the main focus of this webinar is going to be looking at the, the steps following on from cleaning, so focusing on disinfection. We'll look at the different chemical groups of biocides and how they work, and then I'll go through some of the commercial disinfectant products within each group and have a look at some of the ways these are tested, so that we're sure that the products actually work against the different organisms that we're interested in. So as a general rule, certain organisms are more or less resistant to biocides.

So the biocides can either they find it easier or more difficult to, to kill the organism. So at the top of the pyramid, organisms such as prions and bacterial spores are generally the most resistant, whereas as we move further down, enveloped viruses such as those that cause purrs, classical swine fever. And most growing gram-negative bacteria such as E.

Coli and Salmonella are usually more susceptible to biocides. There are some exceptions, but these are the, the general, this is the general order of resistance that we tend to work with. So if we have a look at the different types of biocides, so biocides are classified by their main active ingredient, which are listed on the left hand side of this table, and these are the ones that generally cause the activity of the disinfectant and make it able to kill the bacteria or the the organisms we're interested in.

I've included the main categories here, along with how effective they are against each type of organism. So as you can see, this differs between the different biocide groups and across the different types of organisms. So we do have to kind of think carefully about which products we want to be using depending on which, which diseases we're interested in trying to get rid of.

So the alcohol-based products are generally aimed more at clean environments such as laboratories, and these are generally effective against bacteria and fungi. The aldehydes work on most organisms, although they, their veridal effects do vary depending on the virus that we're trying to, we're trying to target. The chlorine-based products have the broadest range of activity, but these do tend to be used more widely in the food industry rather than on farm use.

The iodines and phenols have a broad range of activity as well, although phenols don't have any sporoidal effects. And the coronary ammonia compounds, which also get referred to as quarks, tend to be more widely used in the food contact environment. Although we will, we do see them combined with products like aldehydes, and they then get used on farms for disinfectants there.

So we've had a quick look at how effective the different bacteria, different biocides can be against the different organisms. But in a real world environment, there's lots of other factors we need to consider as well. It's not just a matter of putting a disinfectant with an organism and it will have an effect.

So the numbers in brackets after each biocide group on the left indicate how many cells were green on the previous slides, so how many. Organisms, the, the, the products were effective against. But if we then actually look at the other factors, which can affect the activity of the the disinfectant, we'll see that most of the chemical groups are inactivated by organic material, except for the phenol chlorochreasol group.

So this links back to the previous webinar where we were discussing the importance of removing as much of the organic matter as possible before we consider disinfection, which then gives the disinfectant the best chance of working, because there's nothing that can absorb it and stop it from from being effective. All of the products can also be affected by water quality. So depending on where the water's been sourced from to dilute the disinfectant before it's being used, this can affect how well the disinfectant actually works to kill the organisms we're interested in.

And then there's some of the factors that can also have a have an effect on the different products. So pH, temperature that the products being used at obviously on farm, they're generally going to be used at a cooler temperature, which can make a lot of the products less effective than if they were used in a warmer temperature. And the presence of other chemicals such as detergents, which can again affect the pH of the environment.

So this is why it's important to make sure that detergents are rinsed off and the area is allowed to dry before disinfectants applied. Some of the chemical groups are fast acting, while others require repeat application or they require a longer contact time. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing because when we're advising on how to do a thorough disinfection of a farm, we'd say allow a longer, the longer contact time you can allow between the surface and the disinfectant, the better.

So actually having a slow working disinfectant isn't a problem as long as you know that you need to leave it for a slightly longer time. But it is worth keeping this in mind when you're choosing or recommending a product for use. And all of the disinfectants come with a list of cautions.

Obviously, the aim of the disinfectant is to kill the organisms, so they are hazardous chemicals and they need to be handled appropriately wearing the appropriate PPE or RPE if necessary, and following the safety precautions on the container itself and in the safety data sheets. It's also important to keep in mind where the disinfectants are going to be used, so the type of surfaces you're looking to use them on, because some of them are corrosive, so you don't want them in contact with metal surfaces for long periods of time because that is going to cause problems with equipment damage. So we've looked at the mode of action for the main chemistries, but how does that actually relate to commercial products that people might have heard of?

Because I know it can be quite confusing when everything always gets referred to by the active ingredients. So here's a selective, a list of select, selective disinfectants, that you may have come across. So these are ones which are generally used on farms in the farm environment, and that's what they've been designed for used for their use.

In this list, I've only included products that are on the DFA approved disinfectants list. There are many of the products available, but the list would be endless. So hopefully, you recognise some of these as being sort of the main brands that we generally use in the UK.

Some industry bodies will also have their own lists of disinfectants that they recommend for use or Auditing schemes, we may may recommend which products they'd like their farmers to use, and the same within big companies, they may have bought into a specific brand of disinfectant, and they use the whole package available under there. So, industries like the, industry bodies like the British Egg Council have their own list of active of disinfectants by active ingredient, which they recommend for their producers to use. So there are other lists available, but the, the deaf approved one is the one that I, I work with most regularly.

So, what is the DFR approval scheme? So I'm hoping that most of the listeners, especially the vets, are aware of the, the DA disinfectant approval scheme, or have at least heard of it, especially when it comes, when it comes to looking at dealing with, regulated or and notifiable diseases. So I'm going to go through it briefly and I'll try not to get too bogged down in the legislation.

So, under the 1981 Animal Health Act, the government have a responsibility to have a list of suitable disinfectants that are available for use in the case of a disease outbreak, specifically for notifiable diseases. And this is underpinned by the diseases of animals approved disinfectant England order of 2007. So there's a legal requirement for for this scheme to be in place, and that's why we, we monitor it and maintain it.

So it's basically a legal mechanism that's resulted in a go to public list of commercially named products that are end use disinfectants that can be used on inanimate surfaces, so animal housing, transport, feed troughs, etc. For use in the case of a disease outbreak. So the products on the list, list have a proven efficacy against specified dilutions and against certain specified dilutions and against certain pathogens which are known to cause notifiable animal diseases.

So under the DFRA approval scheme, there are 5 different orders that we refer to and depending on which industry you're working with, you may be more or less familiar with certain concentrations and certain orders. So we have a poultry orders which covers avian influenza and Newcastle's disease. We have foot and mouth disease order, swine vesicular disease, TB, and then the 5th 1 is referred to as general orders.

So the general orders covers all notifiable animal diseases not covered under the four specific orders already. So things like rabies, blue tongue, Bruella, etc. But when we're doing the testing for the general orders, we use salmonella as a target organism.

Generally, salmonella is fairly robust within its organism group, so if we can kill that with the disinfectants, then we, we're generally quite happy that we're going to kill the other diseases that are listed under that order. So when you look at the back of your disinfectant packet, if it's definitely approved, there'll be an additional information box saying at which concentration it's been approved at for which order. And not all disinfectants are approved for all five orders.

So you do have to check if you're disinfecting against a poultry house against avian influenza, you have to check that the product is actually approved for that order. The concentrations that they've been approved at as well will also differ from the general use concentration. So again, it's worth checking, check with your vet, check with the, the approved list that you're going to be using at the right concentration.

So if you have or you're, you're working with a farm that you haven't, that has a known disease problem or you're in a high risk area or have particularly susceptible animals, we would always recommend that you use the general orders approved rate, as this will be most effective against the widest range of organisms. And as I said, it's always worth double checking the concentration against the DA list. So the DFA list is live and it's public access.

So if you look on the.gov website or just type in DRA disinfectant approvals into your favourite search engine, it'll appear and all of the products are listed by their commercial name, and you can search for them for specific orders if you're interested in, in a certain order. And it states which concentration it's approved at.

And that list is maintained on a daily basis. So if there's ever any changes to the concentration for use, it will be on that list. So it's always worth double checking, especially in the case of an outbreak.

So the DFA approval testing is a commercially available test for any manufacturer that wants to submit their product. So not all products are DFA approved. They don't choose to, to take part in the scheme, and that is their, their choice.

That's completely up to them. There are other tests available. So there's European efficacy tests, which products can be tested against, and they're often required to have these tests in place, as part of their, their registration and the buy side regulations.

However, at APHA we also carry out a range of other tests on disinfectants, where we're trying to simulate the, the farm environment so we can better understand how the product works in a real-life setting. So we usually start by finding out which products the relevant industries are using at the time. So if we're looking at pigs, we'll contact the pig industry and see which products are, are being used.

And then we also include an appropriate faecal matrix to To act as a challenge for them, for the disinfectant to work against. So again, if we're, we're focusing on the pig industry, we'll use pig faeces. If we're looking at the duck industry, we'll collect duck faeces and add them into the mix.

So it's not just a clean test that the disinfectants being tested in. And then as a target organism, we tend to generally to use salmonella. As I mentioned before, it's fairly resistant to disinfectants.

So if we can eliminate salmonella from a simulated in farm test, then we're, we're quite happy that we're going to be eliminating many of the other organisms that we'd be interested in. We do occasionally use E. Coli and that's usually when we've got, when we're looking at the cattle side.

So if we're looking at the, the ery toxic E. Coli. So we've developed a range of testing models that we're trying to reflect how the disinfectants are used on farms, so the different, different environments are used in.

So in areas such as boot dips, we're interested in how well the disinfectants work, how stable they are over time. Also interested in surface disinfection models to simulate pen cleaning. And then also looking at biofilm models to see how well disinfectants can prevent biofilm formation or remove biofilms once they've formed.

So with the boot dip models, we wanted to see how well the disinfectants cope with faecal material being added regularly, as if it would be if you're using a boot dip on a daily basis. So can the back, can the disinfectant boot dip kill the bacteria that's being added within the faecal matrix, or does it become a bacterial soup? So actually, when you're putting your boots into a boot dip, are they coming out dirtier than they were when they went in?

So for these tests, we used salmonella for the pig and poultry testing and E. Coli for the cattle side. So the table here highlights the most effective products for each species.

There was a range of effects across the the whole different products that we tested, but here I'm just highlighted the ones that were particularly effective. So the aldehydes worked well for the pigs and ducks, but overall, it was the chlorocreool-based products that performed well across all of the species that we tested. So if you remember earlier from the earlier slides, the chloroquisol based products or the phenol-based products, they sit within the same category.

They were the group that was highlighted as being able to cope with the presence of organic matter. So obviously they, they're adapted to this environment, they're suitable for this environment. We did see a bit of variation between the different products and between the species of, faecal material that we were testing.

And that's likely just to be down to the the the makeup of the faeces themselves as to how dry or wet they are in the other organisms that are carried in them. Regarding boot dips, we also want to look at stability over time. So boot dips are generally made up and left in position for a few days, whilst hopefully still being regularly used.

So we prepared simulation models where we added faecal material over a 7 day period, as if a boot dip was was being used and mucky boots were going into it, and then tested the boot dip at day 3 and day 7 to see if it could still kill salmonella for the pig study and E. Coli with the cattle study. So the highlighted products all remained effective for at least 3 days.

But again, it was the chlorocreool products that were still killing the bacteria after 7 days. So again, just highlighting the the usefulness of the the chlororeal products within this environment. So we're talking about boot dips and disinfections in general, obviously, there's always a cost involved and that can always cause problems or inhibit the, the, the uptake of using disinfectant properly, properly.

So this table gives a rough idea of how much it costs to make up a 5 litre boot dip. So these were just costs of buying one container of disinfectant. They generally varied in size between 5 litres and 25 litres.

I didn't look at any bulk purchases or, or deals that could be gotten, but, I think it just gives it a general idea as to the range of prices depending on which products you're looking to use. So it's obviously important to keep in mind how you're planning to use a disinfectant and where it's likely to be used, . On on the farm So the cheapest products here listed was the one of the parasitic acids.

However, it wasn't one of the top performers in the testing that we've looked at so far. So there's there's there's different options there. So you could go, well, actually, I'm quite happy to use the cheap disinfectant, but you might recommend that the boot dips changed on a daily basis.

So you're, you're more likely to maintain the efficacy there. But it has to be, need to be changed more regularly. Also from the other end of the scale, if you're using a more expensive product, you almost want to be making sure that you are, it is being used properly at the right concentration.

And the environment is being applied into is the best to let the disinfectant work against the organisms because otherwise it's an expensive chemical to use if it's not going to be, going to be targeting the disease you're interested in. So we also wanted to see how well the products worked in dealing with organic matter in a dried on surface, so similar to cleaning an animal house. So in order to do this, we coated wooden dowels with a fe faecal matrix spiked either with salmonella or E.

Coli, allowed them to dry, so we've got a nice crusty, dried on material, then exposed them to disinfectants and allowed the disinfectant to soak in overnight. So again, as we would recommend, takes place in a, if you're actually trying to clean an animal house. So this would be a worst case scenario because we didn't make any attempt to remove any of the organic matter from the dowels before we tried to disinfect them.

So it's definitely a, a dirty disinfection test. We also tested the disinfectants at half of their recommended Dero concentration to see how well, how effective they really were, and to, to account for incorrect making up of the disinfection or extra dilution effects if the surfaces wet before the the disinfectants applied. And none of the products we tested at half their recommended concentration worked.

So, I mean it doesn't just highlight the importance of making sure that the concentrations that have been recommended are those that are followed and made up successfully. In this surface model, the chlorocreol based products weren't the most effective this time. It was actually the aldehyde-based products that came through.

So whether these were aldehyde, these were formaldehyde, glutaaldehyde combinations, or aldehyde qua ammonia combinations, they were the ones that seemed to be more effective. And this might be due to other ingredients that within the products themselves that allow the that to help to soften the organic matter and allow the disinfectant to penetrate it, so it can actually get to the bacteria that we're trying to kill. The less effective products are more likely to be absorbed by the organic matter and then just can't access the, the bacteria, which is why they, they don't work quite as well.

So these tests, the, the boot dip and the surface disinfection model, they both highlight how these, how the products work differently, and work in different environments. So it's not necessarily a one size fits all when it comes to choosing the disinfectant. It's actually looking at the environment that you want to disinfect and making sure that you're choosing a product appropriate for it.

So as you heard in the previous webinar, bacteria can form biofilms on surfaces, which helps to produce a protective layer and can make the bacteria up to 1000 times more resistant to disinfectants. And obviously this can cause quite a lot of problems in terms of trying to get rid of them and trying to stop disease. So we wanted to test how well the disinfectants work against biofilms once they've been formed.

So we allowed biofilms to form on wooden surfaces for up to 25 days, and then tested them at different time points to see, see how well the disinfectants worked against biofilms of different ages. So if you look at a product N in the bottom left-hand corner, this was a standard pattern we expected to see. So the product works initially with the, the dots at the bottom of the graph, indicating poor bacterial growth.

But then once the biofilm got between 8 to 10 days old, the disinfectants were no longer able to kill the bacteria and we're seeing a higher level of bacteria growth coming through. And many of the products followed this pattern. We also looked at differences if, if faecal faecal material had been added while the biofilm was forming.

And again, the disinfectants were less effective once it had this additional faecal challenge added. So the two products circled with those which performed the best. So one of these was a glu aldehyde, formaldehyde-based product, and the other one was a chlorocreool based product.

But here, you'll also be able to see that there were differences even within the same chemical group. So the chlororeool product that was effective, product K. There was also product I and J, which were both chlororeool based products, but these didn't have the same level of effectiveness against biofilms.

So obviously, there's, although the, the active main active ingredient of product K is chlororeool, there's other chemicals in there that are helping have an effect against the the biofilms. So these are the commercial names of the products tested in the biofilm model. The selection was made from products in use on pig farms at the time of the study.

However, some of these are no longer listed as DFA approved or no longer available for purchase, but hopefully you'll still see some familiar names in there. Depending on where the biofilms are forming, there are specialist products that are available to target biofilms. So especially in areas such as water lines, but this study itself just focused on looking at farm disinfectants were aimed for use on farms rather than biofilm specific disinfectants.

So in conclusion, when choosing a disinfectant, it is really important to consider what the disinfectants going to be used for. So the aldehyde combination products, whether it was glu aldehyde, formaldehyde, or glutaaldehyde and quain ammonia compounds, they were the most effective for surface disinfection. Whereas the chlorocreool based products were the ones that were most effective for use in the boot dip.

It's also important to remember to make sure that the concentration's being accurately measured. So if this has been, if the disinfectants being diluted manually, then this is easier to monitor. Obviously problems can come in if a a power washer with an automatic draw through is being used, and it's worth making sure that these are calibrated on a regular basis, because if, if the disinfectant isn't being applied at the right concentration, then you're not guaranteeing that you're going to be killing the organism you're trying to get rid of getting rid of.

And it's generally just going to be a waste of money and a waste of time and you're not going to see the effects that you're looking for. So I just like to thank you for your attention and I hope that you've enjoyed this section of the webinar. Thank you.

Hi, so I'm Lauren Dimmock and I'm a health and welfare officer at AHDB. I sit on the animal science team and although, a lot of the work that, I, I look at is pork related, I think particularly in terms of disease surveillance projects, I look after the biosecurity aspects are very transferable cross sector and so I work with a lot of other colleagues, across the, beef and lamb and, ruminant sectors in order to sort of share information and, and skills. So.

I'm gonna look at the modelling the disease risk, sorry, modelling the risk of disease spread and why we should start taking biosecurity more seriously. So why is effective cleaning and disinfection so important? I wanted to start actually with a couple of slides that I'd borrowed from a colleague at APHA and take you back to 2001 and the foot and mouth outbreak that sort of caused devastation really in the livestock sector.

The dot in the bottom right-hand corner is the first outbreak on the 19th of February 2001, and if we just flick through, these real-time slides, you can see the date changing, . In the top right hand corner. And just the speed of spread really and within two days you can see we've got further outbreaks, but most concerningly, the distance between the first outbreak and then that 2nd and 3rd outbreak really is quite substantial.

And although a national movement ban was put in place on the 23rd of February. You can see how many moves had actually taken place then, and this covers all the sort of abattoirs, livestock dealers, feed suppliers and merchants, that were involved in, in those initial outbreaks, and these are all moves that we had to trace back, to investigate. And so obviously by then disease has entered, the farm and has spread on this scale already, so it really is quite scary.

So just keep going through the real-time slides, you can see the spread, and quite the range of spread. And again, keeping an eye on the date, just how quickly, . Outbreaks were appearing.

So one month after confirmation, there is still finding cases from the original seeding of infection. And I just wanted to really make the point that although obviously that happened back in 2001, the concern and the risk is, is very much still there now in terms of once disease is known and once there's an outbreak on farm. It's too late to implement a biosecurity plan.

We need to act now and we need to really encourage, I know from AHDB's side, we really want to encourage, whether it be pig producers, or other farmers of livestock and anyone involved in the agricultural sector, that they've got to do their part in, in maintaining biosecurity. So if we just take a second to look at some of the basics of the farm level, the best way to protect, from a disease really is to stop it entering in the first place. And although, you're sort of here of the fortress farm, and although that may not be achievable for everybody, we really want everyone to get as close to achieving that as possible.

And basic cleaning and disinfection really is readily achievable. It's nothing too complicated, it can be built into the everyday routine, but the problems arise where sort of standards are allowed to slip and we let bad habits creep in. So, the, cleaning and disinfection plan should be part of all farm, veterinary health plans and should always be carried out conscientiously and reviewed regularly.

And I think we really appeal to the vets to help us reinforce that message. Looking at the five basic steps of cleaning and disinfection, the removal of organic matter, the use of a detergent, cleaning, drying, application of a disinfectant at the right quantity, as, as Becky's detailed, and the right dilution rates and understanding the use of the right disinfectant for the right, organism. So the efficacy of disinfectant will depend on cleaning the removal of organic matter and looking at the ambient temperature.

So we know that PES virus, for example, can survive and remain infectious for over a week at 4 degrees. Looking at the contact time, so a longer contact time can in some cases enhance the efficacy of disinfectant and being sure to follow the instructions, on each container, and then the type of pathogen. So making sure that you're using a pathogen-specific disinfectant.

And, referring to the death or approved list. AHDB have, several SOPs on cleaning and disinfectant, and the, processes to go through on-farm, and these can be found on our website. So, the links are there on those slides, but if you visit the AHDB website, you'll be able to access those too.

So what are the pinch points? We know from the pig sector, that there's a 2019 spike in swine dysentery cases, and really, a lot of sort of research into this suggests that that's occurred really due to bad habits and biosecurity. I'm sure some of you are probably aware that we're on high alert in the pork sector, particularly for, African swine fever, so it's, sort of moving around Europe at quite a fast speed.

It's caused quite a lot of devastation in China and. We really do need to tighten our biosecurity here to prevent it, arriving in the UK in the first place and protect our farms. And a disease like swine dysentery, if you look at this graph, we had quite good control of, and towards sort of 2018, we were seeing less cases, but we're starting to see a real spike again in 2019.

And that suggests perhaps that there are lapses in biosecurity that we just really can't afford to have. So, I like this quote because often when I sort of talk to producers and arrange, discussion groups and, work with our knowledge exchange team, we tend to find that, oh, you know, I, I've got a cleaning plan in place, I've always had it like that. It's worked for us in the past.

But obviously, as with everything, viruses and diseases are evolving. We've got to allow our, biosecurity plans to evolve with them. And I think really, it, it says quite a lot when you try to arrange a meeting on biosecurity, and you almost know that you're really gonna struggle to get attendance there and we really need to try and change that and, and push it to the forefront that if we're going to protect the industry, we've got to push biosecurity.

So looking more specifically at some examples of, of research surrounding the efficacy of disinfectants, AHDB worked with the Scottish Agricultural College and, tested, a number of isolates of common endemic diseases against the number of disinfectants. And the whole purpose really was to optimise the benefits of the, of cleaning and disinfection processes, and to maximise the cost-benefit. So we know that in order to be cost-effective, well, we need the system to be cost-effective, and we need a feasible practise in order to encourage uptake and to encourage everybody to, have a, a well-structured disinfectant plan.

The outcomes of this study, really demonstrated that none of the compounds were universally effective against pathogens alone and all showed widely different susceptibility to the different disinfectants. So under high organic matter, the load was markedly reduced. Sorry, under high organic load, the effect was markedly reduced and under low temperature and short contact times, efficacy was also reduced.

So what can be done using this research? Well, we know that many factors can influence the choice of disinfectant, and we should consider things like the environmental temperature, the possible need for higher concentrations in cold conditions where hot water perhaps isn't available, as it's not all the time. The contact time, so allowing up to 60 minutes if possible, or more than that if, if there's then the feasible time to do that, and effectively removing organic matter before applying disinfectant.

So I wanted to talk through some of the resources that AHDB have, to offer to try and encourage biosecurity on farm. And although some of these schemes, obviously apply to pork, they are cross-sector and there's a lot more information on the website. So, it, it certainly is applicable across the board.

One of our schemes is the Significant Diseases Charter, and it's a voluntary scheme for pig producers to sign up to in order to receive disease alerts about two key diseases within the pig sector. So swine dysentery that I mentioned earlier, or PDV which is poor sign epidemic diarrhoea virus, which thankfully, we don't have, in England at the moment. However, the system's set up so that, all signatories will receive email alerts.

And in these alerts, they'll receive the postcode outcode, the region of the outbreak, and then any actions that that producers is taking in order to protect themselves, so whether they're the units undergoing treatment and then perhaps depopulation and repopulation. Or immediately being depopulated, and then any additional biosecurity measures that they've taken, and perhaps some information on, if they've got any thoughts or understanding already as to how that disease may have entered the farm. So we can share that information then with all producers signed up and they're nominated.

That so that they're aware of, where an outbreak is, sort of alerts them quickly. We're looking to increase those the text alerts as well, so producers will have an email and a text and they're a little bit more accessible. And, that gives them a chance to really increase their biosecurity, and plan moves on to farm.

So, we've asked to sort of share this information with allied industry, so, Anyone from hauliers to feed companies, genetic suppliers, they can all sign up and receive this information too, so that they can plan perhaps, if they've known that an outbreaks in a specific region, they can try and plan, their future routes to avoid that region, or increase biosecurity, so that when they're making deliveries, they're not spreading disease. We also have a series of posters, so on the left, the don't bring it home, and the do you keep pigs, even just as pets specifically focused on African swine fever, but obviously the others there about not feeding the pigs and using foot dip, are really applicable, simple signs that, can be, but we really encourage producers to display all over their units, in the staff tea rooms and they're available in different languages too. So again, these go cross sector so that, .

If you've got mixed nationality workers on the farm, they're available there. One of our key recent campaigns, that we're really trying to push, in terms of biosecurity is the muck free truck, and you may have heard about it in the press. So it's a joint campaign with the National Pig Association, Red tractor, and it's just been endorsed by DU, the 4 CBOs, and it's really to target hauliers and and vehicle drivers associated with agriculture.

To encourage them to conduct good cleaning and disinfection of their vehicles. So we have produced a small poster which you can see on the right there with the four sort of key stages of, of good biosecurity practise if you are a haulier or a driver. But we're also, conducting an abattoir and market lorry wash facility survey.

So we're asking for the views of drivers or anybody using, livestock and lorry washing facilities. To tell us how often they're cleaning out, how they find the facilities, any issues, so that we can see examples of best practise, but also, to try and understand if there are any gaps in the system there, because if we think back to the start of the presentation, we know how fast disease can spread on vehicles. We know that just 1 gramme of, infected faeces could spread African swine fever to hundreds of pigs, and that's a massive risk for us at the moment.

And so we really need to try and engage, hauliers and drivers. That top picture of the muck free trucker is just a cab sticker. So, it mentions the use of detergents, degreases, and disinfectants to try and remind hauliers, that they are are three really important stages, but also to display the cab sticker, just to support the campaign, to show other drivers that they're doing it, and, and to spread the word really.

So what would actually happen when good cleaning and disinfection's not implemented in the event of an outbreak? Well, there's quite a bit of research conducted in Russia, following the, finding of the first African swine fever case, and they actually found that the effectiveness of all existing biosecurity measures on farm would be halved. So in the event of an outbreak, anything that you're, you, you've implemented previously, if foot dips aren't maintained, if, there's not the good provision of additional.

By security measures, then all the things that you're doing in the event of an outbreak, it's unlikely that they will be, effective at all. The benefit of standstill regulations will be reduced, and obviously the longer that vehicles are less contaminated, the easier the disease will spread. So the quicker there really is an importance of good, particularly vehicle cleaning and disinfection, as these particularly sort of in the terms of, in terms of moving of, livestock to slaughter or from markets, we really need to make sure that as soon as livestock's dropped off, the vehicle is thoroughly cleaned before it goes on to complete.

. The next pick up or drop off. And in order to do that, we need to make sure the facilities are in a sort of, position to offer those services so the queues aren't too long, that the equipment is working effectively, the disinfectant and detergent are readily available, perhaps looking at water pressure and water temperature, that kind of thing, and the cleanliness of that facility. So, It's no good having a really clean lorry, but then you have to drive through, a big pile of, of dirty water from the lorry wash afterwards.

So we're really just trying to raise awareness there and, and ask for people's views and, and tighten, tighten practises. And finally, probably the most concerning point here was that the slight, the size of the largest outbreak can increase by several orders when vehicles are left for a single extra day. So perhaps, a vehicle that's dropped animals at market has then driven home, late at night.

Done a lot of hours and then not cleaned out until the next day. That risk has, the risk has increased by several magnitudes just by leaving that vehicle overnight parked on site. So it really is worth nipping it, nipping it in the bud and, cleaning straight away.

Some of the actions on farm that we're trying to encourage, we have the no entry signs that are available on the website, but, in terms of vehicles, we're really trying to encourage sort of the mantra that if it's not cleaned, to turn it away, familiarising, with HDB's SOPs. So we've got a lot of information on our website about, how to clean. Calls, for information for visitors, information for people working on site, and they can, they're really simple steps that can be followed, for each individual farm, but that would really help, build the health and, biosecurity plan, but also to review it.

So getting someone else to review the plan, again, is really useful. Encouraging pig producers to sign up to the significant diseases charter, so. We've got a really good coverage.

We've got just under 70% of producers signed up, but, you know, it's never gonna be as effective as it could be until we have 100% signed up. So trying to get that message out to vets, to share with their clients would be fantastic. We're trying to recruit more allied industry, and we're trying to get to everybody from a big commercial enterprise to, somebody that's got a pet pig, because at the end of the day, it only really takes that 1 gramme of infected faeces to cause the problem.

And so I was just going to end on this, another quote really that practise doesn't make perfect, but only perfect practise, will achieve that. And so what we really want to try and do, if there's one thing that you could take away perhaps from this section of the, the webinar would be to, try and encourage your clients, To, to review their biosecurity procedures, run through them, run little audits on them and make sure that perhaps, you know, identifying those pinch points, asking them for their thoughts on, on changing situations that perhaps they hadn't thought about before, and with their vehicles, if they're going to abattoir regularly themselves, how are they washing out? Have they considered, you know, do they, do they have, do they have the opportunity to clean out on site?

Do they have to wait until they come home and, To take some of our posters, spread the word, share it with their staff, and to feedback to us too because they've got ideas of, of more standard operating procedures or information, then to get in touch and, and we can try and help them out. And thank you very much.