Heighten biosecurity and expanded open communication have proved key to managing the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreak that has spread throughout southeastern and central Manitoba.
Of the 76 sites infected by PED in Manitoba 36 have moved to transitional status which is a positive site that has no clinically infected pigs and has groups of pigs confirmed to be non-shedding.
Jenelle Hamblin, the Manager of Swine Health Programs with Manitoba Pork, says we can expect new infected premises moving forward due to normal movements but producers are working hard at biosecurity and cleaning and disinfecting to move their statuses from positive to transitional and then to presumptive negative.
Implementing strong biosecurity, stronger than what has been considered normal on farms have kept negative sites negative. This virus is very sneaky and it has left us still searching for how it came into some of our infected premises even with strong biosecurity in place. Some factors that have led to breaks include animal movements, noted lapses in biosecurity between barns, area spread such as rodents, wind and the like, sharing staff in the high risk areas as well as high risk movements between service providers. These have all been identified as potential causes of breaks.
Open communication among the herd vets has been very impactful. Early in the outbreak the herd veterinarians, Manitoba Pork Council and the Chief Veterinary Office were meeting multiple times per week via conference call to discuss new infected sites, practices that were working and not working. Information sharing and collaboration was huge to help deal with these infected sites. This group also had consultations with veterinarians from Quebec, Ontario and the U.S. that have had experience with PED outbreaks to also learn from their experiences.
~ Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork
Hamblin says maintaining strong biosecurity not only on farm but throughout the industry and encouraging this open communication between the herd vets, Manitoba Pork Council and the CVO’s office have us all working on this common goal, a healthy Manitoba swine herd.
