Few details had been released by the end of January about Alberta’s first case of PED. On Monday, January 7, provincial officials released a statement confirming that the disease had been found on a 400-sow farm somewhere in Central Alberta.

In an interesting coincidence, the news that provincial officials had confirmed the discovery started reaching industry representatives as they gathered at the Fairmont Banff Springs for the 48th-annual Banff Pork Seminar.

Veterinarian Egan Brockhoff raised the concept in a discussion outside of his presentation to the 2019 seminar. Like many others that gathered for the conference, he vividly recalled that fateful afternoon in 2014, when delegates started getting alerts on their cell phones just as they were getting ready to go into a boar pit session that would wrap the seminar up for that year.

An unusually large crowd gathered in the room to talk about the news that PED had crossed the Canada-United States border and was confirmed in an Ontario hog farm.

It seems an odd coincidence that the first case in Alberta was announced five years later, during the 2019 edition of the same seminar where so many people were gathered when the announcement was made.

While there was much less drama this time around, the Alberta case has served as a stark reminder that producers and their industry partners may have been slacking off on their biosecurity protocols, said Brockhoff.

By the end of the month, provincial officials including the Office of the Chief Provincial Veterinarian had issued few details, stating only that the source had not been confirmed and was still under investigation.

Producers, shippers and hog facility operators were reminded to revisit their biosecurity protocols and make especially sure that critical control points such as truck and trailer washing were being tightly managed.

Alberta Pork is posting updates on the producer resources page of its website and is working closely with provincial officials to manage the outbreak and trace back its source. Anyone with questions is encouraged to connect with the Office of the Chief Veterinarian online at www.agriculture.alberta.ca/ocpv or by calling 780-415-0810. Producers can also call Javier Bahamon at Alberta Pork, 780-469-898 or toll-free at 1-877-247-7675 or visit the producer resources page on the web site, www.albertapork.com

All producers are being asked to contact their veterinarians at the first sign of diarrhea within their herds. •

— By Brenda Kossowan