Mark Fynn, the manager of animal health and welfare programs with Manitoba Pork says stepped attention to transportation bio-security will be key to keeping Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea off Manitoba hog farms as the weather turns colder.

When PED first entered, many didn’t realize that it would flourish better in cold weather, meaning the disease is harder to contain than in warm and hotter weather.

The hog industry in Manitoba and Canada for that matter has worked hard at containing, and eradicating, and now keeping it out.

Under Manitoba’s PED surveillance program, they’re collecting 100 samples each week from high traffic areas including provincial abattoirs, federal packing plants, truck washes and assembly yards.

Fynn says experience now shows the risk will rise as the weather turns colder.

“The good news is that we’re not seeing any positive results for PED at the federal packing plants,” he said. “Those are a really good indicator of whether we have on farm cases that we’re unaware of so it leads us to believe that we’re not dealing with any on farm cases at the moment.

We still see some positive results from time to time at the other high traffic facilities that have frequent U.S. contact and we’re relying on good bio-security when we visit those sites to prevent bringing it back to the farm.”

PED virus really survives well in cold temperatures and it’s easier to move around, especially when things are wet and slushy and so the risk of transmission is much higher in the winter months and the shoulder months than it is in the summer when they get away with things more, adds Fynn.

“In the U.S. who we use as indicators of viral movement and survivability, we expect to see more cases there,” he said. “We hope in Manitoba that our bio-security practices manage to keep it off farm and we don’t see any cases over the winter but there’s always the possibility and that’s why we encourage producers to really focus on bio-security and make sure it’s not their farm that’s getting affected.”

Fynn says the recommendations still focus on the farm gate, making sure we have good entry protocols to the barn so they don’t bring anything in and focusing on transport bio-security including cleaning and disinfecting the trailers.

One of the casualties of PED was a protein feed ingredient, blood plasma made from dead pigs.

Dr. Frank Marshall, a swine veterinarian from Camrose, Alberta advised pork producers earlier who use blood plasma products in feed to take steps to ensure those products do not contain porcine blood plasma.

As the result of concerns over the risks associated with the potential spread of PED through the use of blood plasma products, there are certified bovine origin PED tested blood plasma products becoming available for use.

Dr. Marshall, with Marshall Swine Health Services, warns hog producers to use caution when sourcing these products.

“From the veterinary community the use of swine origin blood products is still not to be recommended,” he said. “The HACCP certified plasma processing that goes on if properly done, again if properly done, should have killed any infectious risk. However, the suppliers have never come forward with how it was that a plasma product arrived in Canada with infectious virus.”

Again, people like the OIE – World Organisation for Animal Health and many others have put forward many very confusing comments regarding the safety of products like blood plasma, claiming that the Canadians were out to lunch in terms of how this entered the hog industry here.

“But I’ll tell you it is very clear to the vet community involved in the initial 17 sow herds that broke in Ontario there’s no question how this came,” said Dr. Marshall. “It sounds like we’re flogging a dead horse here but it’s been exasperating to still see comments coming out of news agencies around the world that Canada couldn’t prove the feed source and such, but nevertheless we all know the story.”

Dr. Marshall stresses, producers need to ask about the origin of these bovine blood plasma products and the plants they come from to ensure that they’re only bovine origin and they’re not mixed with porcine.  •

— By Harry Siemens