The National Pork Board is advising pork producers to step their focus on biosecurity and to work closely with their veterinarians to help contain and eradicate an outbreak of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
PED was first identified in the U.S. in mid-May and has now spread to several U.S. states.
The National Pork Board in cooperation with the National Pork Producers Council, the American Association of Swine Veterinarians and USDA is surveying those operations that first broke to learn what was done differently and determine how the virus got into the U.S. in an effort prevent further introduction of this or other diseases.
Dr. Paul Sundberg, the vice president science and technology with the National Pork Board, says this is a biosecurity issue.
The virus is probably transmitted as a fecal-oral transmission.
That means that anything that would come onto the farm that could carry contaminated feces or anything contaminated with the virus carrying it onto the farm would be the mode of transmission.
Disinfecting trucks, cleaning and disinfecting trucks, cleaning and disinfecting any equipment, making sure that visitors on the farm understand biosecurity procedures and the second thing is working with your veterinarian and talking with your veterinarian, one, about biosecurity and how to enhance that and, two, if there’s anything spotted on the farm that looks consistent with the clinical signs like TGE, watery diarrhea or vomiting, get a veterinarian involved to get a diagnosis so we can understand what’s going on.
Dr. Sundberg stresses this is not a zoonotic disease so it doesn’t spread from animals to people or from people to animals and it’s not a food safety risk.
He says you can’t be too careful so work with your veterinarian to implement farm specific biosecurity and, if there are any clinical signs, call your veterinarian and get samples to the diagnostic lab so the infection can be identified and tracked.
