Swine fecal slurry sampling

In large scale farming environments, humans and animals are in frequent close contact where they are known to exchange zoonotic pathogens.Despite this close contact between humans and animals, little to no infectious disease research is conducted at this interface. Finding ways to collaborate with animal production industries is key to conducting such human-animal interface surveillance. Major industry objections that must be overcome include the biosecurity risks of permitting researchers to enter farms and the harm that the specimen collection may cause the animals. As there is increasing evidence that zoonotic viruses may be transmitted via environmental pathways such as through aerosol, feces, and water, in this study, we used metagenomic sequencing methods to examine swine fecal slurry samples for molecular evidence of microbes.