While biosecurity heightens in the livestock sectors as more diseases raise their ugly heads Jenelle Hamblin, the Manager of Swine Health Programs with Manitoba Pork said the effort to rid the province of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea continues to make progress.

Hamblin told pork producers at the Manitoba Pork’s fall producer meetings in Niverville and Portage La Prairie, the cleanup is coming along well.

“In 2018, we confirmed 14 cases of PED all in that southeast part of Manitoba,” she said. “Currently we’re sitting at five of those sites that have reached presumptive negative status, meaning their animals and all of their animal contact sites tested and confirmed negative for the virus, except for the manure storage. We call it presumptive negative because the manure may still have live virus present. There are five that have reached the transitional status so they’ve done the cleanup and they’re currently in the process of doing their testing to achieve that presumptive negative status, which is excellent.

Hamblin said four of the sites remain in that positive status, those of which that broke later in the year, in that September range are still working their way through the cleanup process.

“I think we’re doing well regarding our elimination goals for 2018,” she said. “For 2017, we have 76 of the sites that have reached presumptive negative status. The four outstanding sites are that we had 80 sites infected in 2017; they are looking for clearance to presumptive negative hopefully by the end of the year. It will be nice to close the book in 2017.”

Hamblin said the fact that the number of new cases dropped from 80 in 2017 to 14 in 2018 said volumes about how the sector has improved the biosecurity. Hamblin also talked about how Manitoba Pork is encouraging producers to register and take part in the Manitoba Coordinated Disease Response.

“The Manitoba Coordinated Disease Response is an online information sharing platform, a confidential, online information sharing platform that is open to producers. Manitoba Pork Council hosts and administers it,” she said. “We ask producers to sign an information sharing agreement, a confidentiality agreement that allows MPC to share their disease information as it relates to PED or to PRRS, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome which is the hope of the development of the MCDR down the line.”

Hamblin said currently, and in 2017 when they created the MCDR and up until now, they’retracking the disease statuses, disease location, based on maps created at MPC to show where the affected sites in each year are in the province. So, it’s an excellent resource for producers to access current and up-to-date information as it relates to PED.

All producers can sign on to the MCDR as per the confidentiality agreements. To access the system, they contact MPC to sign the confidentiality agreement.

“We require the signature of both the landowner and the inventory owner which can potentially be the same person or it might be two different people,” she said. “Next we create a username, a log-in name, and password sent to the email address on the confidentiality agreement giving them full access to the system.”

So far, the majority of the interest in the MCDR is in the Southeast part of Manitoba because that’s where they confirmed all the PED cases.

“We have 78 per cent participation for those producers residing in Southeastern Manitoba but still have some work to do,” said Hamblin. “We’re still missing a proportion of those producers and are going to continue to reach out and get those producers signed on to the MCDR. We’re sitting at about 48 per cent participation across Manitoba. Again, a large proportion of that is in the Southeast so we keep promoting the MCDR as not only a tool for those producers in the Southeastern part of the province but something everyone in Manitoba can use to understand where the disease is and the involved risks.”

She said having broad participation on the MCDR gives Manitoba Pork the ability to see the disease profile for PED specifically across the province and allows them to share the information widely.

“Our experiences from 2017 and in into 2018 have taught us the quicker we can get communications out there, the better. And the wider we can present them at one point in time, the better for everyone,” she said.

“That way it’s a one-stop shop for disease status information for producers. So, the more people that participate, the more information is available on the site. Should we see this disease move beyond the Southeast, we’re better prepared to communicate with those producers that potentially could get the disease.” •

— By Harry Siemens