Anthrax continues to appear in Manitoba’s Interlake region.
The bacterial infection has been found on 11 quarter sections of land owned by nine farms.
“It’s shown up on small farms and large ones. Some of our (Manitoba) staff characterize the situation as swampy land that is drying up,” said Sandra Stephens of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in Saskatoon.
“Ideal for anthrax. Not so good for farmers,” she said.
So far in this outbreak, 28 cattle and one horse have been lost to the disease.
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In an earlier incident one animal died in southeastern Manitoba on a farm where anthrax occurred in 2006.
Since spring thaw in Saskatchewan, one case was found in cattle in the Lloydminster area.
In Alberta, one case was discovered near Medicine Hat. In the northern part of the province in Wood Buffalo National Park, anthrax is also showing up in the bison population.
“There are always a few cases up there, but it is hard to observe and contain in that region,” said Stephens.
She said where carcasses are subject to rapid predation, there is a risk of the bacteria being spread over a larger area.
Near ideal conditions for anthrax are occurring in northeastern and east-central Saskatchewan and parts of Alberta where spring moisture has given way to summer drought.
“I think the reason we aren’t seeing more of the disease is that producers are vaccinating against it if they have the conditions in their pastures,” said Stephens.
New tools are helping to speed laboratory tests for anthrax and a new field kit can give preliminary results in 15 minutes. The field level test takes a single drop of blood. The United States Navy developed the system in response to using anthrax as a biological warfare threat.
Stephens said it would potentially put a simple and effective test in the hands of veterinarians “before they get up to their elbows in an autopsy.” The test is still in the evaluation phase and isn’t widely available yet.
Stephens said the agency isn’t waiting for its lab in Lethbridge to confirm anthrax.
“We dispose of the carcass as if positive. We don’t wait to find out if it’s a false positive test, not that it happens a lot.”
Stephens said producers should continue to watch for suspicious deaths and report them.
“Even if it’s a cervid carcass. An (anthrax infected) cervid carcass that gets spread around by scavengers is just as much a threat to the future of a piece of pasture as a cow,” she said.
Protecting any carcass that dies under unknown circumstances from predation is critical to controlling the future spread of the disease. Anthrax spores live for more than 100 years under the right conditions.
Texas, too, has been experiencing ideal conditions for anthrax with a warm, wet spring followed by drought. The Dakotas and Minnesota have also reported cases of anthrax in livestock this year.
