The President of the Canadian Association of Swine Veterinarians says swine veterinarian in Manitoba have stepped up their focus on addressing a new more virulent strain of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome.
A new more virulent strain of PRRS, a viral infection that affects pigs of all ages and stages of growth, has been identified in Manitoba.
Dr. Blaine Tully, the President of the Canadian Association of Swine Veterinarians and a partner with Swine Health Professionals in Steinbach, says genetic sequencing to determine whether it’s related to strains experienced in Manitoba or other parts of the country have shown that its kind of a lone wolf.
We have about 12 or 15 farms, the majority of which are in southeast Manitoba but we do know there’s farms in the Interlake and out into central Manitoba that have been infected. At this point the swine veterinary community has joined together and is somewhat dovetailing in with our PED response and we’re looking at doing a lot more epidemiological evaluation of farms that are infected with this new strain of PRRS, where they’re located, how related the new strains are, because once PRRS infects a pig and starts replicating the nature of the virus is to mutate slightly each replication and so we get variations within strain families. So we’re looking at relatedness of viruses by sites and trying to map out potential transmission routes or events.
~ Dr. Blaine Tully, Canadian Association of Swine Veterinarians
Dr. Tully says pork producers and the veterinary community have been in a heightened biosecurity awareness mode for many months due to PED and fortunately all of the safeguards being put in place to protect farms from PED apply to reducing the risk of introducing PRRS.
