The Manager of Swine Health Programs with Manitoba Pork says maintaining strong biosecurity throughout this coming winter and spring will be key to eliminating Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea from the province.
Manitoba’s pork producers appear to have gained the upper hand in bringing under control a Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreak that struck at the end of April.
Half of the 80 sites infected have now achieved either PED transitional or presumptive negative status and elimination and eradication efforts are ongoing.
Jenelle Hamblin, the Manager of Swine Health Programs with Manitoba Pork, says the number of new cases has fallen since June.
We had seen our peak of infection in June with 35 individual cases in June alone. The cycle tended to go downward from there. In July and August we had 17 and 14 cases respectively and only two in each September and October. We’re currently, with the 80 infected premises, working towards elimination and eradication and we’re currently at 40 premises that are in upgraded status to either PED transitional or to presumptive negative.
If we maintain the trajectory that we’re currently on I feel very strongly that we can continue to work towards eradication of this disease. The key thing will be maintaining that strong biosecurity throughout the winter and into the spring of 2018. Spring is typically when we’ve seen new cases pop up but, if we keep in mind that this virus is here in Manitoba, we need to protect ourselves from it, we have a good chance of keeping it at bay.
~ Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork
Hamblin says a key finding is that previously infected animals continue to shed virus long after had been thought, upwards of 70 days. She notes 50 of the 80 infections are being attributed to indirect contact and indirect movement so controlling those movements and monitoring our animals is probably our best bet.
