This is the first confirmed case of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) in Alberta since February 2022. The disease first arrived in Alberta in 2019.

The affected farm has a three-kilometre and a 10-kilometre buffer zone around it to prevent the disease from spreading. No other farms are located within these zones.

The impacted producer is working with the provincial chief veterinarian officer and Alberta Pork to investigate the source of the outbreak, contain the disease and avoid further spread.

As of February 19, all facilities participating in Alberta Pork’s Environmental Disease Monitoring Program have tested negative for PEDv and porcine deltacoronavirus.

Alberta Pork advised farmers to practice strict biosecurity protocols. Producers should enhance biosecurity on-farm and in transportation and submit all swine manifests, including farm-to-farm movements, in a timely manner. Any place off farm, such as an abattoir, should be considered as a potential source for spreading PEDv.

What is PEDv?

PEDv causes diarrhea and vomiting in pigs. The illness can kill younger pigs in herds that have not been previously exposed to the virus.

PEDv does not pose a risk to human health, food safety or other animals. The disease can be spread by direct contact between infected and non-infected pigs, but also by people’s clothing, boots, vehicles, equipment and any items contaminated by the feces of infected animals.

The disease is provincially regulated in Alberta, and suspect cases must be reported to the provincial authorities. Producers should contact their veterinarians immediately if their animals exhibit signs of PEDv.

Research into alternative lactation housing system, passive barn-cooling technologies to reduce heat stress, and advanced food safety protocols to improve pork quality was also funded.

Swine Innovation Porc announced four new research projects under its Advancing Swine Research initiative. Swine Innovation Porc is a research coordination organization funded by Canada’s national and provincial pork boards.

The four projects are also supported by the federally-established Pork Promotion and Research Agency. Swine Innovation Porc will contribute up to $488,347 for a total of $1.18 million in total project funding.

The Advanced Swine Research initiative supports one to three-year projects running from 2025 to 2028.

Biosecurity protocols are key to helping farmers keep production diseases such as porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) out of their barns. Biosecurity is also critical in preventing foreign animal diseases such as African swine fever from entering Canada. Good biosecurity helps keep animals safe and healthy.

The last major outbreak of PED in Manitoba began in fall 2021, lasted through to spring 2023 and is estimated to have cost the province more than $100 million. Current estimates indicate that PRRS in the United States is costing the industry there $1.65 billion annually.

Manitoba’s hog and pork producers learned some key lessons from the last PED outbreak. The first is that the entire sector needs to work together if we are going to effectively protect animal health. The second is more difficult. Sometimes, parts of the value chain will need to take actions that are not in their short-term fiscal interest but are in the long-term interest of industry.

This collaboration demonstrates the industry is willing to do the right thing, even when there is a short-term cost. The result of this teamwork is Manitoba’s PED Elimination Plan, which has been effective in stopping disease spread.

Stringent biosecurity explains why producers are concerned about unauthorized people coming onto their farms, which can render efforts to prevent disease spread useless. This is a key reason why farmers support anti-trespass legislation.

Farmers also work day to day to safeguard the overall welfare of their animals. Hog producers across Canada are guided by the 105 code of practice requirements for the care and handling of pigs. The code is backed up by legislation and regulation, such as Manitoba’s Animal Care Act.

Confirming compliance with high standards for animal care includes verification. The Canadian Pork Excellence (CPE) program is a national platform for producers to demonstrate compliance with food safety, animal care and traceability standards.

Doing the right thing also includes ongoing improvements in environmental sustainability.

For example, modernization of agriculture has revolutionized nutrient management. Past generations did not have today’s research or tools to minimize manure runoff.

Currently, more than 90 per cent of hog manure in Manitoba is either injected below the surface or incorporated into the soil after it is applied to the land. This prevents leaching into our waterways and positions valuable nutrients next to the seed where it is most beneficial for crops.

Modern equipment can test the flow as manure is being applied using near infrared technology and vary application rates on a real-time basis. Farmers use global positioning technology, ultrasonic speed sensors and radar to ensure that manure is applied in the right place and at the right rate.

Before applying manure, farmers are required to file manure management plans with the provincial government. These plans are tailored to the specific crops being grown and include soil sampling to help prevent the over application of nutrients.

The environmental and animal care record of modern Manitoba hog farmers is one in which they take pride. It is also a record that should be a source of pride for all Manitobans. Manitoba pigs are raised in a sustainable way that will help ensure the industry’s ongoing contributions to our economy and job creation in our local communities.

That was the shared position of a number of leading American swine veterinarians at the World Pork Expo.

“I believe that we can get it eliminated,” said Laura Dalquist, a veterinarian with the Swine Vet Centre. “I think it’s possible.”

However, success will hinge upon an enormous amount of work and diligence, vets said. Testing will need to be available as needed and compliance across the industry is necessary.

“Everybody was on board,” said Dr. Deb Murray about the historically successful efforts to eliminate pseudorabies and classical swine fever. “It wasn’t a choice. Everybody was doing it.”

PED arrived in the mid-2010s and spread through North America’s hog farms. It appears to be cyclical, with a two-year pattern of one bad year and one better year.

The disease took a few years to appear in southern Manitoba, but when it did, huge numbers of piglets died.

Farmers in the U.S. have been living with PED for years, but Manitoba’s hog industry decided last year to attempt eradication within the province. Adopting that goal is now being discussed in the U.S., after the living-with-it approach has proven too costly.

However, as Murray said, elimination won’t likely happen unless every producer is part of the effort. Dr. Guilherme Cezar of Iowa State University said nobody wants to go through the work of eliminating the disease in their barns only to be re-infected by a neighbour who isn’t bothering to do the same.

Controlling PED “should be mandatory” if the industry attempts to try that approach.

“If it’s not the whole industry trying to eliminate this pathogen, I don’t think it’s going to work,” said Cezar.

Now producers need to embrace the goal of elimination, Murray said.

“If there’s enough of a push, and enough of a producer push … it’s doable.”

“These projects and the knowledge that we’re aiming to achieve through this research will contribute to the bottom line of pork producers and processors and will also build in Canada’s global leadership in pork production,” said Daniel Ramage, general manager of Swine Innovation Porc.

On Feb. 20, the federal government pledged up to $10.6 million for hog sector research. The funds, to be stewarded by Swine Innovation Porc, will launch the fourth hog research cluster under the federal agri-science program, part of the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal news release said.

It is the latest in several cluster announcements made by the federal government. Clusters for canola and pulses have also been announced.

SIP, a research and development non-profit directed by the federal and provincial pork councils, also co-ordinated the previous three hog clusters.

The group says it will spend up to $20.1 million in combined government and industry funds over the next five years on the sector’s research priorities. These include climate change and the environment, sector resilience, economic growth and communication and knowledge transfer, a release said.

Planned research includes two vaccine-related projects, said Ramage. One involves testing a new oral delivery method for vaccines. The other is related to a new vaccine for PEDv, which has been a scourge for Manitoba’s pork sector since 2017.

Canadian producers have access to PEDv vaccines, but they haven’t been ideal. One PEDv outbreak brought vaccine from Saskatchewan’s VIDO-InterVac to Manitoba farms, Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork’s swine health director, told Glacier FarmMedia last summer. However, it was expensive and had little benefit for animals with no previous exposure to PEDv.

Another U.S.-based vaccine is available, Hamblin said, but import requires special permission from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Researchers will also look at antimicrobial alternatives, specifically tools to improve gut health, Ramage said. This may include amino acids or probiotics.

The industry has been pressured to reduce antibiotic use. Manitoba Pork told its members in 2022 that the sector is unlikely to escape regulation on the issue due to global concern about antibiotic resistant bacteria and their effect on human health.

Under the heading of emissions and environment, projects will look at feed formulations and strategies to reduce phosphorus runoff and nitrogen concentration in manure, SIP said in an explainer document.

Ramage said they’d also look at manure storage and digesters to reduce environmental impact and understand the economics around such practices. Other research will explore genetics, feeding strategies, meat quality and other topics.

The Manitoba Pork Council has launched a PED elimination campaign for the southeast region, where wave after wave has hit since 2014. When the disease breaks out, it can quickly go from a handful of farms to dozens or more than 100. It kills most baby pigs it infects and damages the health and growth rates of other pigs.

“It’s not sustainable, period, to have that level of PED run through our sector every two years,” said Jenelle Hamblin, MPC’s manager of swine health.

The council has begun a campaign to get all Manitoba hog producers on-side with a plan to more aggressively attack the disease where it breaks, more intensely monitor barns and animals for early signs of the disease, and improve hog operations so the disease doesn’t happen at all.

In this approach, Manitoba is being bolder than many parts of the U.S. Midwest, to which Manitoba is connected, where hog farmers and the pork industry have tried to manage the disease rather than eliminate it.

MPC doesn’t expect to eradicate PED from Manitoba. The province is too connected to other regions where the disease is widespread. However, if it can reduce major outbreaks by 96 percent, it would consider the disease to be practically eliminated. It wants to reach that goal by 2027.

“This is an outcome-based plan,” said Hamblin.

Another outbreak is expected next year since it tends to come in a two-year cycle. This year there are only five infected locations in the southeast.

MPC’s goal is to see the next major outbreak only hit half as many farms as in the last outbreak, which would mean up to 65 locations could be affected. It also wants each location to suffer shorter outbreaks.

In 2025, it hopes to see an outbreak of only up to 33 locations, then 17 in 2026. After 2027, it wants to see only 10 locations per year with infections.

To get there, MPC believes it needs all-industry co-operation and everybody to follow the plan.

All producers and others in the southeast must commit to following the strategy or the disease will continue to circulate and elimination will be harder.

“It’s something we need to promote and adopt across our sector because there are so many interconnections and intricacies at play here,” said Hamblin.

Getting all-industry co-operation isn’t easy, MPC general manager Cam Dahl admitted. But now that producers have faced multiple waves of PED and the costs associated with battling it, most accept that everybody needs to follow the plan. Other areas being ravaged by PED today are showing what happens when there is weak local solidarity.

“I think in some other jurisdictions, there isn’t the acknowledgement that we’re all in this together,” said Dahl.

“There’s going to need to be a collective response.”

While MPC has a strategy, it is flexible enough for each operation to customize it. It is a series of principles that can be fit to various types of farms.

The basics of the plan include five steps:

• Monitor for the disease.
• Keep it out of the herd.
• Aggressively attack outbreaks.
• Execute a thorough clean-out and six-week production shutdown after an outbreak.
• Continue with “wartime” biosecurity, always.

None of this will be easy. Some producers have been reluctant to undertake the full six-week shutdown during a clean-out because of the massive financial costs.

“I think some of those (production pauses) have been (shortened) in the past,” said Dahl.

However, the long pause is vital to prevent reinfections.

MPC plans a series of one-on-one meetings with production groups in the southeast, including major corporate players, Hutterite colonies and independent producers.

Veterinarians will be closely involved, overseeing implementation of plans on specific operations they serve. The plan was developed by MPC, Manitoba Agriculture and the Chief Veterinary Officer of Manitoba.

But those dreams were dashed six months ago when a pharmaceutical company gave up on its attempts to create a PED vaccine.

However, the head of the Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization told Manitoba hog farmers that the dream was not dead. Using VIDO’s new facilities and new approaches, it might be possible to turn the PED vaccine into a barn-level reality.

“It is possible that the ultimate vaccine could be made at VIDO (at the University of Saskatchewan) and stored and available to the industry,” Andrew Van Kessell said at the Manitoba Swine Seminar.

A PED vaccine has been developed. That’s not the problem.

In a previous PED outbreak, Manitoba’s hog industry supported VIDO in developing an emergency-use vaccine, which was successful in fighting the piglet-killing disease.

But it has so far proven to be impossible to commercialize. A vaccine company took on the challenge but couldn’t make it work.

However, since the lab vaccine was developed, VIDO has expanded its capabilities, recently adding enough manufacturing capacity that it can produce small commercial-sized volumes of vaccine.

The intention of these facilities is not to replace private manufacturers, but to develop vaccines to a commercially viable state and then hand them off to vaccine companies.

To do that, they need to take vaccines from the lab and scale up to the kinds of volumes manufacturers would use in order to spot problems that might need to be worked out.

However, for vaccines for small livestock markets, those facilities could produce vaccines and keep them in store.

“We have that capacity now. We didn’t have that in 2013,” said Van Kessell.

VIDO is also exploring using a subunit vaccine for PED control, which is a new technology that avoids many of the problems that arise with needing to multiply disease cultures.

The hog industry associations of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have supported a VIDO-based bid for research funding from Swine Innovation Porc to develop this sort of PED vaccine. That bid is now in front of Agriculture Canada, Van Kessell said.

For managing porcine epidemic diarrhea virus in Manitoba, the Manitoba Pork Council is urging producers to embrace the latter. PED-zero is hard to achieve, but living with PED is becoming impossible.

“It’s intensive,” Jenelle Hamblin of MPC said in an interview during the Manitoba Swine Seminar about trying to live with the piglet-killing disease.

“It’s labour intensive. You’re always kind of on edge.”

Manitoba’s hog producers are being urged to try to completely eliminate PED wherever it appears, especially in the hog-dense areas of southeastern Manitoba where the disease has repeatedly hit barns and herds.

The recent waves of the disease were slow coming to Manitoba from the United States, where it has been a perennial problem in the Midwest and other areas with many hog barns. Farmers have been hit, have seen huge losses of baby pigs, and have attempted to eradicate the disease from their barns by depopulating, sanitizing their barns, following tight biosecurity protocols and constantly monitoring their herds. Regardless, many have seen repeated outbreaks despite all these measures.

Some American hog farmers gave up fighting PED and have attempted to live with it, allowing exposed sows to remain within a herd and hopefully create herd immunity, while managing small outbreaks.

This approach, in the view of most in the U.S. industry, has not worked.

“It’s just as much work, if not more work, to continue to manage this disease inside the farm and deal with these re-breaks and deal with this lost production,” said Hamblin.

A particular concern is that barn staff get worn out. All the extra management exhausts everybody on the farm.

“They’re tired of it,” said Hamblin of U.S. farmers in often-infected areas.

“They’re tired of having to continue to manage the situation.”

Manitoba’s core sow farm region has experienced a fresh wave of PED infections about every two years since 2017. The situation was particularly bad last year, with 131 locations being infected.

“It was a terrible winter in 2020-21,” said Hamblin.

If the two-year pattern holds, this year shouldn’t be as bad, but another wave is expected for 2024. The industry doesn’t think that can be completely avoided, but minimizing the spread is an attainable goal.

However, that will require all farmers to work toward elimination. U.S. experience shows that few will be successful in eliminating PED if their neighbours don’t try for the same result.

“The region has to be on the same page,” said Hamblin.

If all farmers can attempt to eliminate the disease, then the future should look much better, she said. The goal for 2027 is to see PED eliminated from 96 percent of the industry.

The disease is so virulent and widespread in surrounding regions that making Manitoba 100 percent PED-free doesn’t seem achievable, but by clamping down on it wherever it appears, it is hoped that it can be turned into a sporadic management issue rather than an industry epidemic.

“If everybody chooses elimination, you have a better chance of eliminating,” said Hamblin.

Over the past two months, Manitoba has experienced a large outbreak of PED. This is not a new phenomenon for Manitoba, which has experienced similar disease breaks every other year for several years.

What makes the recent epidemic different is the time of year. Previously, the majority of PED circulated in late spring, summer and fall. We now have significant viral diarrhea occurring in a season that we cannot rely on warm weather to help heat, dry, contain and eliminate the virus from farm and farm transport systems.

Here are two biosecurity principles and strategies we feel are important for slowing the spread of disease.

Confirm the disease-free status of your animals before transporting

Like many viral diseases, pigs begin shedding virus in their manure before developing noticeable diarrhea. This has led to several instances in which infected farms transported pigs that subsequently infected a new premise. While the diarrhea is severe in young pigs, all pigs are susceptible, and older growing pigs and mature sows may develop only transient diarrhea or soft stools. This can be camouflaged in “normal” sporadic soft stools and an early PED infection can be missed.

With the cold weather Manitoba experiences in winter, many finishing barns have some level of humidity and fog, which makes observations of subtle manure changes challenging. Farms in high-risk areas with PED-positive neighbours are encouraged to test before moving pigs, be that to the next stage for growing, or to the processing plant.

Many producers found their transport trucks exposed to the virus at the slaughter plant after backing up to a dock that had received pigs from an “unknown” positive farm.

Know your weaknesses and address them

The PED virus needs to be eaten by a susceptible pig for the infection to occur. This means if we can keep the virus out of the barn, the infection is prevented.

It sounds simple, but obviously we fail, a lot. It is often said that a virus walks into the barn, either on two feet (people) or four feet (pigs). The significant high-risk period for either to occur is when we crack the load-out door to receive or ship pigs. This interface of the “clean” pig-side of the barn with the “dirty” outside world may result in a transmission of virus. Many pig transport trailers are either baked (at 70 C for 20 minutes after washing and disinfecting) or at the minimum, dried at room temperature with some forced air.

Freezing a trailer (which occurs within minutes of exiting a washbay) does not kill any pathogens. Instead it keeps them viable, waiting for a thaw event.

Once baked, we need to get our clean trailer back to the farm to load with animals. This can potentially re-introduce pathogens to the trailer, simply by driving down mucky roads where road “mist” or debris can seep into the trailer through gaps, cracks and non-sealed doors. This road debris coating the back of the trailer and bumpers directly contacts the barn loadout chute. Once the door is opened to the barn, pigs being loaded (or unloaded) will walk across the contaminated bumper. We recommend thoroughly soaking the rear of the trailer and bumper with a non-freezing solution of disinfectant and allow appropriate contact time for the disinfectant to be effective before opening doors and loading.

Another issue that arises at this clean-dirty interface is the negative static pressure we create with barn exhaust fans. Fans pull out warm, humid barn air, creating a vacuum, which in turn pulls in the cold, dry fresh outside air through attic inlets. In winter, we reduce attic inlet space to restrict how much cold air we allow into the barn. While this keeps the barn warmer and reduces heating costs, it also tends to increase the negative static pressure (suction). When we do open doors like the load-out chute door or the dead-stock removal door, the barn will “suck” in whatever is on the door frame, ramp or in the trailer backed up to the barn.

It is advisable to disinfect the ramp/chute, door frame and bumper pad before loading pigs. If possible, create a positive pressure within the load-out chute (or load-out room) to blow up and out rather than suck in bedding and road debris.

Maintaining the positive pressure the entire time the load-out door is open is critical. It is important to have people doing the loading to use dedicated boots that do not leave the load-out area. As well, they should use dedicated wash wands in the load-out area, and wash, disinfect and dry the loadout immediately after using it.

People should not step onto the trailer when loading pigs up the ramp, and they should really understand exactly where the clean-dirty interface starts and stops.

We know there are many other ways that farms are becoming infected. Area spread through wind has been hypothesized in some instances where there had not been any breech in the load-out dock door.

Likewise, we continue to look at how best to decontaminate supplies, tools and equipment before entering into the barn.

Proper people entrances are critical to prevent those two-footed creatures from being part of the problem.

If farms do not have proper showers and changing areas, then at minimum, they should require a change of footwear at a physical step-over barrier to demarcate the clean-dirty interface.

We continue to learn lessons from each PED break and strive to address biosecurity risks that we identify to prevent the next one.

Blaine Tully is a veterinarian and owner of Swine Health Professionals Ltd. in Steinbach, Man.

“We’re at the point of managing this rather than our hoped-for outcome of trying to contain the virus,” said Cam Dahl, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council.

Sixty-one provincial facilities are now infected with porcine epidemic diarrhea, a virus that kills young pigs but is generally insignificant for older hogs and is not a human health risk.

That is a big increase in numbers from just a few weeks ago, when provincial hog industry leaders and officials hoped to be able to stop it spreading beyond a handful of hot spots, mostly in the province’s southeast.

“The hope of containing the virus is past,” said Dahl.

“We have a general outbreak and general spread.”

This current wave of PED infections follows significant Manitoba waves in 2019 and 2017. The disease has been widespread across the U.S. Midwest and has hit Ontario a number of times.

While accepting that this wave won’t be held to a couple of areas and quickly eliminated, Dahl said keeping it out of as many barns as possible is essential. Producers are doubling down on prevention.

“Biosecurity is key,” said Dahl.

However, biosecurity is difficult in frigid and snowy conditions like Manitoba has had in recent weeks.

“Some of the biosecurity measures, like cleaning off the back of your truck, are more difficult in winter,” said Dahl.

The situation is also exhausting for barn workers, many of whom work with baby pigs because they like the nurturing nature of the work. Having to see so many sick pigs and to euthanize many takes a toll.

“It’s pretty hard on the mental health of people,” said Dahl.

Contact ed.white@producer.com