All restrictions were lifted at an Alberta slaughter plant after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ruled out foot-and-mouth disease and swine vesicular disease in a load of pigs delivered June 21.Olymel at Red Deer was cleaned and disinfected and resumed business June 23.Routine inspection of hogs prompted federal officials to shut down the plant when some lesions were discovered. Tissues samples were submitted to the national disease laboratory in Winnipeg for further testing.The actual cause remains undetermined, said Jurgen Preugschas, chair of the Canadian Pork Council. However ,these disease scares and possible trade stoppages remind producers and processors to remain vigilant, he said.“We always learn from these types of incidents. We are fortunate that this was not really serious.“One message that is really clear is that these incidents show how important our traceability and animal identification is,” he said.The Canadian Veterinary Journal in 2008 reported cases with similar clinical symptoms with no known cause in Australia, United States and New Zealand. In 2007, a load of pigs from Manitoba was diagnosed with lesions at a slaughter plant in Minnesota with unknown blisters in their mouths and feet.Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious infection of cattle, sheep and swine. The disease is characterized by fever and blisters on the tongue, lips, mouth, teats and between the hoofs.Swine vesicular disease is a contagious viral disease of pigs causing fever and fluid-filled blisters in the mouth, snout, feet and teats. It is rarely fatal.Both are federally reportable diseases in Canada.Olymel handles 45,000 hogs head per week and employs about 1,300 people at its Red Deer plant. With plants in Alberta, Quebec and Ontario, Olymel has a weekly slaughter capacity of 160,000 and sells into 60 countries. It also processes 1.7 million poultry.
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