Dr. Karine Talbot, who is the Director of Animal Health with HyLife, said the emotional experience of dealing with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea is as bad or worse than anyone would realize.
PED virus entered Canada in 2014, showing up in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and Prince Edward Island and discovered in Alberta a year ago.
In Manitoba in 2017, the worst year on record for the province, the industry confirmed 80 cases and, after dropping off in 2018, numbers in 2019 surpassed any previous year.
Manitoba Pork reported on January 19, 2020, 82 cases of PED in 2019 (38 finisher barns, 14 nursery barns, and 29 sow barns, and 1 barn quarantine). Of the 82 cases, 46 are presumptive negative, eight are transitional, and 28 are positive.
Dr. Talbot said dealing with PEDv is something no one wants to repeat because it is very traumatic and awful.
“It’s even worse than anyone can think of, mostly in a sow barn and something you never forget in your life affecting your day to day activities,” said Talbot. “It changes the way you think about biosecurity, biocontainment. Talking to our employees and staff that work in the barn that went through PED, we very often hear the comment, if my barn gets it again I will quit. It’s so hard; people don’t want to face that again. It’s not just hard emotionally but also physically because you have to work so hard.”
She said there are so many steps to go through and mostly in a sow barn, handling all that death is not something good.
“After that, we see the aftereffect for eight to twelve months of sow production loss so, even once you think you’re through it, you might not return to your previous production level,” said the HyLife Director of Animal Health. “That seems to be driving the problem too, and it’s even worse when you get it the second time. It’s not something you forget easily.”
Dr. Talbot said through all of these outbreaks, and they continue to develop a concerted effort to create awareness of the need to improve biosecurity protocols to battle this infection.
It is occurring mostly in the sow barns where the producer loses all piglets for about six weeks of production. It’s a hundred percent mortality in a sow barn, so it affects the bottom line significantly.
“In nursery finisher barns, the impact is maybe not as drastic. Animals will not die of PED virus at that age but will be sick, vomiting and diarrhea which affect production. Slow growth pretty much but not too slow. The problem is they shed the virus and then become a possible infection point for sow barns around them,” she said. “While not that easy to avoid, if so, the industry would have a solution by now, but it’s not that complicated. So it’s all about biosecurity and biocontainment, which should be in place on farms and it will prevent any other disease, too. Not just the PED virus but it includes everything coming in contact with the farms from people visiting, truck trailers, including feed. Any visitors that come onto a site need to be totally aware of all those protocols. You can successfully eradicate PED, but it means a lot of cleaning and a lot of work.”
Dr. Talbot said the vectors could be anything entering the farms because the virus can attach to anything, any fomites, and people. Not that people can be sick with it like other diseases.
“It’s just that we carry it on our shoes or hands or hair. So anything coming onto the farm has to be a concern. Even pigs can be coming in with PED if infected at the previous barns,” she said. “In Manitoba, we’re wondering about air transmission or dust. If there’s a lot of dust in an area that is shedding a lot of PED virus, that could be a potential source. And we’re also looking at manure in lagoons, while an unknown, we believe there’s a higher risk of a barn that previously broke with PED in the other years.”
Dr. Talbot reiterated how important it is to have tight biosecurity, but that seems so easy to say. It means absolutely no gap in the total farm’s biosecurity protocols applied on the farm every day, every minute, every second. It’s so tiring.
“When fighting things like dust or manure spreading, we don’t have all the secrets yet, but that’s where we’re looking into filtration or dust control.”
While developing and following a biosecurity plan and protocol, a strong emergency plan when the PED virus hits the barn is essential.
“How do you stop the movement of your pigs? Who do you contact if you get a disease like that? How can you contact all those peoples within five minutes? So being prepared is something we’ve learned is very useful,” said Dr. Talbot. •
— By Harry Siemens