The biosecurity coordinator with Alberta Pork says stepped up biosecurity remains key to keeping western Canada free of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
Although Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea has now been confirmed in five Ontario swine operations, western Canada remains free of the infection.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the biosecurity coordinator with Alberta Pork, says we tend to see all of our pig movements in western Canada going north and south toward the U.S. mid-west and the U.S. mid-west is significantly affected by this virus so transports that move north and south continue to be our number one risk for bringing virus into western Canada.
PED virus is a very transmissible virus.
Affected pigs shed very very high numbers of this virus in their feces so we’re really focussing our efforts on getting the message out on those key areas of concern.
Transport biosecurity remains number one, ensuring that all the trucks that come to our farm to pick up pigs and deliver pigs have been previously washed, completely disinfected prior to their arrival on the farm is the best thing we can do to ensure we’re not exposing our farm to virus and then reviewing all of our other biosecurity processes, making sure we’re doing all in all out movement with the pigs if possible, we’re focussing on a secure entry way into the pig barn where the people that are coming in are having to pass through at minimum a Danish entry system.
Dr. Brockhoff notes, while cold weather has no effect on the virus, the winter makes it much more difficult to wash and disinfect the trailers and load out areas at assembly yards so propylene glycol protocols and disinfectant protocols have been developed that, when in combination, allow the disinfectant to sit on the surface for the nearly one hour that it needs to kill the virus.
