This thesis consists of 4 chapters. Chapter 1 is a general introduction and road map for contemporary swine surveillance programs, "Protecting our future - A road map for practical, real-time, on-farm infectious disease surveillance". Chapter 2, "Ring test evaluation of the detection of influenza A virus in swine oral fluids by real-time, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) and virus isolation" has been submitted for publication in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation. Chapter 3, "Probability of the detection of influenza A virus subtypes H1N1 and H3N2 in individual nasal swab and pen-based oral fluid specimens from pigs over time" has been submitted for publication to Veterinary Microbiology. Chapter 4, "Evaluation of screening assays for the detection of Influenza A virus serum antibodies in swine" has been submitted for publication to the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation. References, tables, and figures for each manuscript follow each discussion section respectively. The last chapter contains general conclusions of this dissertation.