While little left to say when another hog farm breaks with a fresh case of PED virus, here is the latest from Manitoba Pork when PED virus outbreak number ten hit a Manitoba hog farm.

On September 21, 2016, a new case of PED was confirmed at a finisher farm in southeast Manitoba. This farm is within five kms of the sow farm that was confirmed positive for PED the week before. The producer is working with their herd veterinarian and Manitoba’s Chief Veterinary Office (CVO) to bio contain the site and make plans for animal care and site clean-up. All farms within five kms of the farm have been notified and all are being tested, as well as any farms that have been in contact with the positive farm.

Dr. Megan Bergman is the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) for the Province of Manitoba agrees with the fact that while it is the tenth case, and people will say it is only ten, but every time a case happens, somewhere in Manitoba, the hog producers that don’t have the dreaded disease, they kind of dread going into that barn the next morning and hoping that they don’t have sniffling weanlings.

“Absolutely … This is a devastating disease both for the health of the animals and the impact that it has on the producers in the industry,” said Dr. Bergman. “So as much as we can keep it out of the barns, that is our primary goal as an industry as well as all the stakeholders that are very committed to keeping this virus out of our barns.”

The Manitoba CVO outlines some key things the industry is doing to make sure the Manitoba industry contains it as much as possible and ultimately eradicate the disease.

“Really with respect to prevention biosecurity is our best line of defence and so making sure that of all of our industry producers are making sure that they have effective bio-containment and biosecurity measures in place,” Bergman said. “Those farms that are negative making sure they have enhanced biosecurity, making sure they are monitoring movement both on and off the farm. Being very conscious of where they are going when they have left the farm. If they go to high-traffic sites within the province, we know there is a higher risk of potential exposures, they need to be very conscious of not bring anything back with them to the barns.”

When asked if she has any idea with this latest case within five kilometres of the one the week before how it is moving around from this latest farm to the one the week before.

“At this point, no. There is no direct linkages between the two farms, with the exception of the geographical locations so we’re not able to make any decisions on where this may have been introduced at this point,” said Dr. Bergman. The industry and government officials have talked much about the trailer washings, especially since the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Federal government stopped the temporary washing program back in May, so does any of that come into play.

“Certainly from our perspective high biosecurity standards regardless of what we’re talking about whether it be trailers or barns are critical, and so certainly we do have some concerns about the use of wash facilities in the United States that may not have standards that are equivalent to what we have here in Manitoba,” says the CVO. “We certainly have some very advanced capability with respect to cleaning and disinfection here. Our recommendation is and many of the industry stakeholders have implemented a second wash when they come back to Canada just to make sure we have clean trailers.” Is the industry following the recommendations and dictates? “I think certainly the bulk of the industry is implementing that because their prerogative is the same as mine, we want to keep the virus out of the province as much as we can,” said Dr. Bergman. •

— By Harry Siemens