The Canadian cattle sector still doesn’t have a vaccine bank for foot-and-mouth disease although it has raised the need for one with the federal government for years.
Canadian Cattle Association president Reg Schellenberg said establishing a Canadian vaccine bank would cost about $4 million per year but the cost of not having one is much greater.
“An outbreak would have an estimated $65 billion effect on our Canadian economy. Canada would experience immediate border closure to all at-risk live animals, meat and animal products,” he said.
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FMD is a highly contagious disease that affects cattle, swine, sheep and goats, and can also affect deer and antelope. According to the World Organization for Animal Health there are seven distinct types of FMD viruses.
Schellenberg stressed it has not been detected in North America but the risk exists, particularly as people resume more travel following the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the greatest risks is from meat products brought from positive countries.
Schellenberg said CCA wants to raise more awareness by drawing attention to the virus. At the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association summer meeting at the end of July, a spokesperson for the United States Department of Agriculture veterinary services addressed the potential risks, noting that Indonesia has tested positive. More recently, FMD was found in Egypt. More than 100 countries are not considered disease free.
A vaccine bank located in the U.S., which Canada theoretically has access to, doesn’t have enough doses if that country were to be affected, let alone help Canada.
“NCBA has communicated to us at CCA that it’s time for Canada to be independent of this reliance on their vaccine storage bank in the States,” Schellenberg said. “We need to have something in-house.”
He said CCA and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency agree on that point. The challenge is to get the federal funding to establish and maintain the doses.
CCA’s chief veterinary officer Leigh Rosengren said the $4-million cost is to maintain the bank that would keep highly purified strains of the virus so they could be rapidly multiplied if needed.
“That’s an ongoing annual cost, which is used for potency testing, maintaining the strains, all of the work they need to do in the lab,” she said. “The vaccine would only ever be used in response to an outbreak.”
She likened it to an insurance cost.
The vaccine’s use would be targeted toward animals near an outbreak to control, contain and eliminate the disease, she said.
“The reason it’s so expensive is because foot-and-mouth disease has many different strains and so you’re not keeping a single vaccine,” Rosengren said.
Symptoms of FMD include lameness, salivation and chomping. Rosengren said in cattle, fortunately, no other disease displays the same symptoms.
“If you have any suspicion at all do not move your animals, do not move anything, just phone your vet. That’s absolutely critical,” she said.
Schellenberg said keeping FMD out of North America is job one. That includes creating awareness of the disease and how to prevent it.
Travellers to and from positive countries should dry clean or wash their clothing with bleach.
“Footwear probably should actually be left behind if you know you’ve been in a country that’s positive,” he said.
At the very least, shoes should be cleaned with bleach.
Travellers should report to the Canada Border Services Agency if they have been or will be going to a farm. Avoiding contact with livestock for five days is also important.
Rosengren said that’s a good protocol in case the virus is on people or clothing.
Foot baths, while they raise awareness and cause people to stop and think, can provide a false sense of security, she said. The baths require footwear to be clean of all organic debris like dirt, mud or manure in order to work. They also require contact time.
“They have their place but I wouldn’t rely on it as a first line of defence,” she said.
Rosengren added that FMD has an “uncanny ability to survive in meat products.”
The 1952 outbreak in Saskatchewan that resulted in the destruction of animals was most likely linked to someone who brought sausage from Europe.
Schellenberg said CCA directors will be meeting with federal officials at the end of this month in Ottawa and will once again raise the need for the vaccine bank.
He noted the government recently announced more than $43 million for the pork industry and African swine fever preparation and mitigation.
“This would be a very small ask in proportion to that, but both equally as important,” he said.
“We want to reassure our industry, our producers as well as our consumers, that we are very much on top of this.”
