1. USDA's African Swine Fever (ASF) Action Week To Return [March 1]: What You Need To Know To Protect U.S. Pigs
APHIS Stakeholder Registry
February 23, 2026
USDA's African Swine Fever (ASF) Action Week To Return: What You Need To Know To Protect U.S. Pigs
Fifth ASF Action Week Kicks Off March 1, 2026
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is hosting its fifth African Swine Fever (ASF) Action Week from March 1-7, 2026. We are encouraging U.S. swine producers, small farms, and pig owners to join us and learn about ASF and what they can do to help protect the U.S. swine herd.
ASF has never been detected in the United States. However, since the 2021 detection in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the closest in decades, USDA has partnered with industry and States to enhance already strong safeguards to protect U.S. swine from this costly disease.
"African swine fever doesn't threaten human health or food safety, but for U.S. pig producers, its arrival would be devastating," said Dr. Adis Dijab, APHIS Associate Deputy Administrator. "This disease could decimate herds, with the potential to kill millions of pigs and cause up to $75 billion in economic losses over the next decade. An outbreak would disrupt domestic production, inflate feed and input costs, and jeopardize access to international markets-putting the entire pork industry at risk."
Join us all week on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, USDA's Instagram, and the website to learn more about what APHIS is doing, and what you can do, to Protect Our Pigs.
Through the Protect Our Pigs campaign, USDA is raising awareness of ASF to help producers and veterinarians quickly find and share actionable information to defend their herds and livelihoods. Free resources, such as custom videos, downloadable materials, and interactive training guides, are available on the Protect Our Pigs website at www.aphis.usda.gov/protectourpigs.
Be sure to check the website and sign up for our GovDelivery email list* so you don't miss any Action Week events or information.
*See: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDAAPHIS/subscriber/new
2. Measuring Risk: How Veterinary Data Impacts Racehorse Safety
A new predictive risk model, overseen by Dr. Tim Parkin, has shown strong results in real-world use.
Paulick Report
February 19. 2026
Why is a horse's veterinary history so key to understanding the risk of fatal injury on the racetrack? Epidemiologist Dr. Tim Parkin offered a fascinating look at one answer to that question during the American Association of Equine Practitioners Conference last December.
"If there's anything we know about catastrophic fractures on the racecourse, prevention is certainly better than cure," Parkin said.
Parkin has been involved with the analysis of the Equine Injury Database since its inception, and has been working nearly as long to create a model that can accurately predict a horse's risk profile before it ever steps onto the track on race day.
His most recent study of the EID, released in March of 2025, had some interesting findings, as reported by Natalie Voss:
3. MU researcher granted nearly $2 million to develop bird flu vaccines [MO - edited]
By Sarah Moura, KOMU 8 Digital Producer
KMOU.com
February 21, 2026
A researcher from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and the College of Veterinary Medicine is working to develop a vaccine to protect humans and animals from the bird flu, according to a news release from MU.
The research is being funded by a $1.9 million grant from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to the news release.
The grant recipient, Wenjun Ma, is a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the MU School of Medicine, and a pathobiology and integrative biomedical sciences professor at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine.
"The HPAI H5N1 infection has caused significant economic losses for our farmers, like the egg shortages, and several issues with food safety and international trade," Ma said in the release. "Right now, outbreaks cannot be effectively controlled, despite best efforts to depopulate domestic birds on impacted and neighboring farms. This grant will help us develop a new vaccine that can differentiate infected animals from vaccinated ones, which will help curb current outbreaks in domestic poultry."
Ma and his team will focus on developing safe and effective vaccines that provide protection from the avian flu as well as Newcastle disease, another fatal, viral disease in poultry.
Full text: https://tinyurl.com/mwbvjuaz
4. Watch the February 4, 2026, ZOHU Call Video.
CDC
February 19, 2026
Presentations:
Leprosy in the United States
Julie Thompson, DVM PhD MPH, Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer
Division of High-Consequence Pathogens & Pathology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
AND
Kathleen Freeman, MD
Chief Medical Officer,
National Hansen's Disease Program, Health Resources and Services Administration
Veterinarian Wellness Program in San Mateo County
Lori Morton-Feazell, Chief Animal Control & Licensing
San Mateo County Health
Video link: https://tinyurl.com/tdn4e9zs
5. Deciphering D [influenza]
A mysterious influenza strain infects livestock around the world. Scientists worry it can become a threat to humans as well
By Jon Cohen
Science
February 19, 2026
Nuevo León state in Mexico-At dawn one morning in December 2025, researchers in the sprawling city of Monterrey, Mexico, loaded a large passenger van with syringes, swabs, test tubes, air samplers, and coolers. They then drove through the flat countryside for 2 hours, leaving the gap-toothed Sierra Madre Oriental mountains in the distance, until they reached a feed lot that had 24,000 head of cattle. "Everywhere you look, all the way to the horizon, it's cows," said Gregory Gray, an infectious disease clinician and epidemiologist from the University of Texas Medical Branch.
At the farm, the team began swabbing noses and taking blood samples from the animals. Gustavo Hernández-Vidal, a veterinarian at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, walked with Thang Nguyen-Tien, a virologist in Gray's lab, to a long pen that held about 100 sick cattle. From a rafter, Nguyen-Tien hung a bioaerosol sampler that sucks in air and spins it to separate particles and collect viral genetic material. Curious, the farm's head veterinarian asked what they were doing.
"We want to see what the cows are breathing," Hernández-Vidal said.
"The cows and us," the vet replied.
The team was here to study influenza D, a mysterious and unsettling new member of the family of flu viruses. They wanted to better understand where and how it spreads-and whether it could become a threat to humans.
Of the four known types of influenza, A is humanity's biggest problem. Spreading easily through the air, it causes annual epidemics that kill tens of thousands. It also infects many other animal species, and different strains of A can swap genetic material to create "reassortants" that are new to our immune systems and trigger pandemics. An influenza A subtype known as H5N1 has been devastating poultry and wild bird populations for the past 30 years and is widely feared to have pandemic potential.
6. Finding More Effective Treatments in the Fight Against Varroa Mites
ARS News Service
February 19, 2026
Researchers from USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are helping bee keepers protect their colonies by studying the effectiveness of combining a widely used mite-killing pesticide with an agent that inhibits the ability of the destructive Varroa mite to tolerate the pesticide.
Honey bees play a crucial role in U.S. agriculture, with the value of crops that require pollination estimated at more than $20 billion annually in the U.S. Varroa mites, also known as Varroa destructor, are a force to be reckoned with in the honey bee world. The dangerous and parasitic mite of bee colonies causes bodily harm and spreads deadly viruses that have led to major colony losses across the country.
A preferred method to control Varroa mite populations is amitraz, a pesticide that is highly toxic to Varroa mites but safe for honey bees, when used as instructed. However, a recent ARS study found that Varroa mites are becoming increasingly resistant to amitraz due to a genetic mutation. Thus, bee keepers are now seeking more effective methods for controlling Varroa mite populations.
Full text: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDAARS/bulletins/40aa098