BANFF, Alta. — The title of Dr. Chris Byra’s talk at the Banff Pork Seminar last month begged an answer — Foreign Animal Disease Preparedness: Is the Swine Industry Ready?
“To answer the question, I guess I have to say no, or at least we’re better off than we were a few years ago, but we’re a long way from what we could call ready … and I’m not sure we can be, totally,” said Byra, a swine veterinarian, animal health consultant and manager of the Western Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network.
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That organization and other livestock networks, nationally and internationally, are working to become better prepared should a foreign disease affect livestock in this country.
Canada exports about 70 percent of its pork, which means the hog industry is vulnerable to the effects of a disease that closes borders or otherwise affects trade, said Byra. Smaller countries might be able to eat their way out of a glut of meat created by border closure, but Canada can’t.
He thinks of foot-and-mouth disease as the worst case scenario because it is highly contagious and affects cattle and other livestock as well as pigs.
The 2001 outbreak of foot-and- mouth in Britain, when one million animals were infected but 6.5 million were killed, provided an example of disease devastation. It is not a model Canada wants to emulate.
Byra said the killing of healthy animals to prevent spread would not be tolerated today.
“The public isn’t going to stand for this again, and that’s going to influence how we prepare here and some of the efforts that we’re making to not have to deal with this,” he said.
He later added in an interview: “We wouldn’t stand for these burning piles of animals, and yet you look at our options. There aren’t that many.”
Byra said six countries, including Canada, have made a proposal to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to create “containment zones” in the event of disease outbreaks. It is among the efforts that are being made to prevent such a scenario.
Zones outside the ones established to contain the disease would still be able to trade.
“This is really the best answer that we would have to not have to go through this massive cull,” said Byra.
Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, which are called the QUADS group, have asked the OIE to consider allowing containment zones within countries and have agreed among themselves to share staff and vaccines in the event of a disease outbreak.
“There’s agreement between these six partners in that QUADS group,” said Byra. “They have put a formal proposal to the OIE. The wheels turn fairly slowly. They’re not hopeful for the next year or so.”
Another idea to reduce disease spread and resulting trade impact is for producers to voluntarily limit livestock movement in the early days of a disease discovery.
Studies show that detecting foot- and-mouth two days sooner in Britain’s 2001 outbreak would have reduced animal slaughter by half. That is because so many animals moved through auctions to other areas in the time between disease discovery and mandated halt of animal movement.
In Canada, it takes a few days to establish a disease control zone. Once an area is identified, an order from the federal minister of agriculture is required.
“That can be a matter of a day or two, and it can even be a week or more,” said Byra.
The industry could restrict animal movement during that time period as much as possible and record the movement that does occur. That would speed the trace-out and control process.
“Industry should consider promoting and, going one beyond that, ensuring that industry takes a voluntary approach to restricting movement during that lag time, when they’re trying to figure it out.”
Work is also needed on accurate identification of foreign animal disease. Many veterinarians haven’t seen clinical examples.
“If something does get here, are we going to see it? Seneca Valley Virus has been a bit of a help, in that I think industry, producers, plants, veterinarians would recognize these blisters, these vesicular lesions of foot and mouth,” said Byra.
“Other than foot and mouth, most of these reportable diseases look like sick pigs. Initially there’s really not much distinguishing them, until you start to do pathology on them.”
Another issue is how to dispose of a large number of animals as part of a disease control effort. Methods of mass humane euthanasia are limited, as are carcass disposal options.
