Pork producers are being reminded the risk of exposure to Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) is likely to increase with the onset of colder weather.
The Canada-West Swine Health Intelligence Network third quarter report indicates the PED outbreak in two southeastern Manitoba swine herds remains the most significant concern regarding the health of western Canada’s swine herd.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council, says unfortunately we’ve seen an increase in PED through the late summer and into the fall.
PED is going to love this time of year. We’ve got cases again in southern Manitoba in both sow barns and finishing sites. The source of the infection, it’s been very frustrating doing those traceback investigations. The sources have not been very clear as to where the infection has come from.
If we look at how PED virus is going to move into farms, something is going to have to transport it in. Typically a transport will contaminate a site and then either a foot or something picked up off the ground will drag it into the barn. It’s just that easy.
Unfortunately we still have PED positive assembly yards in Manitoba and those create an ongoing source of infection and so producers have to be extremely diligent, transporters have to be diligent and pork industry providers have to be very diligent in ensuring they don’t bring the virus in with them to the farms.
~ Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Canadian Pork Council
The report indicates the finisher barn infected in May is now presumed negative and the two sow barns are currently testing sentinel gilts with no signs of disease at this point while the finisher barn infected in September is empty and being cleaned and disinfected and the sow barn is stable and in the eradication process.
