By Bruce Cochrane
Manitoba's chief veterinary officer reports the warm summer weather and continued vigilance among stakeholders within the province's pork industry have helped maintain control of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
A total of 5 swine farms in Manitoba, including 2 sow sites and 3 finisher sites, have been infected with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea since February 2014.
Dr. Megan Bergman, Manitoba's Chief Veterinary Officer, reports there's been no change in the PED status in Manitoba since January which suggests the virus has not yet managed to establish itself in the Manitoba swine herd.
Dr. Megan Bergman-Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development:
We've had extreme vigilance on the part of industry, producers, transporters and biosecurity continues to be the key important message here.
Producers are very conscious of who's coming on and off their site, ensuring that their biosecurity practices are being followed very closely and that they have thorough cleaning and disinfection processes when they have potential risks of contact.
I think that's really been the key to our ability to minimize the spread of this virus.
We're actually in a good position at the moment because it's summer and it's warm and it's dry at the moment and this virus tends to be much more resilient in cool wet temperatures and so hopefully we'll continue to see no activity on the virus over the summer.
We'll have to make sure our vigilance is still high when we hit the fall season and we start to see a drop in temperature.
We're always potentially at risk because we have a lot of movement of trucks and animals between Canada and the U.S. here in Manitoba and the U.S. is obviously a high source of risk for us because they have a much higher prevalence of the virus and so biosecurity practices of our trucks and trailers are really important to ensure that the vehicles that are returning are free of virus and not transmitting it or reintroducing it into our province.
Dr. Bergman says biosecurity continues to be the main focus and making sure we're not introducing the virus and we haven't exposed those trailers by transporting pigs from other provinces or states that may have been exposed or are shedding the virus.
Source: Farmscape