Ontario has eliminated more than half of its 80 porcine epidemic diarrhea cases in its hog barns, and new cases have slowed to a trickle.
The last incident of infection in Ontario was confirmed May 13 in a farrow to finish operation in Lambton County. Only one case was confirmed in April and two in March.
The province was hardest hit by the deadly virus.
Manitoba has also been successful in cleaning up its five infected sites, in part because no pigs from infected operations were processed in Canadian plants, said Alberta swine veterinarian Dr. Dawn Magrath.
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“All of the pigs from the positive sites there did not enter Canadian plants,” she said.
“All those pigs moved south to the States, where they’ve already had PED anyway. They did a really good job of managing, containing that disease to prevent contaminating plants here in Canada. So hats off to them.”
Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia remain free of the disease, which is almost always fatal to young piglets.
It was first recognized in the United States in 2013, where it has since killed millions of piglets.
It was first found in Canada last year, and more than 100 cases have been confirmed.
Magrath told a May 28 Alberta Pork meeting that transport of the disease in livestock trailers remains one of the biggest risks to Canadian producers.
A federal regulation requiring livestock trucks to be washed before entering Canada from the United States will go into effect this month, but that won’t eliminate all risk.
“One of the things that I’ve found still is happening a lot is transport biosecurity is still probably one of the weakest areas of our industry,” she said.
“It’s a tough one to get on top of, but there’s still people out there doing probably not as good a job as they could be, sanitation wise.”
Trucks need to be washed with hot water, disinfected and dried to eliminate virus spread, but trailers have many nooks and crannies and the process is time consuming.
Magrath said some hog producers have begun to haul their own pigs, rather than contracting the job, so they can manage their own cleaning and disinfection.
She warned Alberta producers against complacency now that they’ve dodged the virus for so long.
Tests at various high-traffic areas show occasional positive samples of the virus, although no pigs have been infected. That means PED is present and remains a threat.
The virus continues to spread in the U.S., and every major hog producing state has had it. A vaccination program has helped U.S. producers deal with it in their herds.
“The newer generation vaccines are not quite the same as what we were dealing with initially,” said Magrath.
“There are some improvements there, and I think it’s something again that we need to look at if we get the disease more widespread in Western Canada.”
Magrath also said a third strain of the virus has been discovered in the U.S. The “ortheo” type is in addition to PED and swine delta corona virus.
“We have to keep asking ourselves how these viruses are getting into our industries,” she said.
So far there are no answers.
Contact barb.glen@producer.com
