More than 1,000 cattle near Virden, Man., are being checked for bovine tuberculosis in the latest outbreak to hit this province, and officials say testing could soon move into Saskatchewan and Alberta.
One animal tested positive in a TB skin test that was part of an extensive trace-back program initiated after an outbreak a few months ago in a herd near Rossburn, Man.
The infected cow in Virden was bought from the Rossburn herd, which was destroyed earlier this winter, according to George Luterbach, manager of animal health for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency handling the case.
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With only one infected animal detected in Virden, officials say there’s no need for alarm.
But the situation is further complicated because the infected animal spent the summer in a community pasture near Virden with more than 1,000 head of cattle.
Some of those animals, which all have to be tested, have been sold off local farms and could be impossible to track down, Luterbach said.
“The tracing is incomplete at this point in time, but there is some indication that it could involve feedlots as far away as Alberta,” Luterbach said.
Inspectors have also traced animals into feedlots in Quebec and Ontario, but so far have not been testing there, Luterbach said.
TB-like lesions were discovered on the Virden animal’s organs when it was slaughtered. If laboratory results confirm the presence of the disease, the entire herd of 450 cattle will be slaughtered and the owner compensated for up to $1,500 per head.
A total of 1,050 cattle from 45 farms summered at the Wallace Municipal Pasture in Virden with the infected animal.
All cattle on those 45 farms will be tested and animals sold from those farms will be traced and tested.
Infected cattle were first discovered in the area in a herd near Rossburn in 1991.
The latest outbreak was discovered when meat from cows in that herd sold into the U.S. tested positive for TB in a Minnesota packing plant.
Traced back to Rossburn
That prompted Canada’s food inspection agency to test more than 2,500 cattle near Rossburn. No more infected animals were discovered until the Virden case, when inspectors began tracing cows sold from the original herd.
All 135 cattle in direct contact with the diseased animals found in Rossburn have been destroyed. Any other animals traced to that diseased herd will be slaughtered whether they test positive for TB or not.
Jon Crowson, the agricultural representative for Virden, said producers have been co-operating with federal veterinarians.
“Everybody is in agreement that we have to be transparent,” he said.
“We can’t hide anything, we have to root this thing out just as thoroughly and as quickly as we can so as to not jeopardize our export market.”
That threat has producers and industry watchers across the country following the situation closely.
But Ed McCall, president of the Canadian Veterinarian Medical Association, said the market for Canadian cattle should not be shaken by the outbreak.
So far, the incidents haven’t been enough to ruin Canada’s TB-free status.
But how Canada deals with such outbreaks has far-reaching implications in the United States as the industry here works toward freer trade, said McCall, a vet in Whitewood, Sask.
Case used against trade
The outbreaks provide ammunition for people in the U.S. looking to restrict the north-south cattle and beef trade, he said.
According to Luterbach, an animal can test negative on the skin test and still carry the disease organisms, making it a latent carrier of the disease.
Also, TB can have an incubation period of up to nine years in some cases.
“There’s no evidence of it spreading animal to animal at this time, but rather infected animals being translocated into other people’s herds,” Luterbach said.
