Dr. Chris Byra, the manager of the Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network says strict adherence to biosecurity protocols gives Canada an edge in dealing with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
In Canada, the PED virus remains centered in Ontario, they are disinfecting one infected barn in Quebec, the virus is under control in Manitoba, and one infected herd in PEI remains the Maritimes sole problem.
Dr. Byra says, even Ontario, with 33 listed cases, has only affected about five per cent of the sow herd whereas, in the U.S. estimates show about 2.5 million sows are PED positive, not quite half the American sow herd.
“We’re in much better shape knowing that we’re going through the worst time and not having case numbers build up exponentially as they have in the U.S.,” he says. “Now the reasons for that I think go back to the biosecurity training for all producers in Canada through the Swine Health Board a couple of years ago.”
Byra says the ability to reinstitute that, brush up on it, make sure that compliance is occurring and applying it to processing plants, assembly yards, truck washes, the vehicle companies themselves, the renderers, and the ability to apply all those same principles and actions to those organizations gave us a real opportunity.
“The second part of course is we had eight months to watch things in the U.S. and get plans in order,” says the CSHIN manager. “The various provincial governments along with the pork boards developed strategies to deal with PED and how to prevent it first off and secondly how to deal with it, once it did occur.”
Dr. Byra says the suspicion in Ontario is that the more recent cases are the result of biosecurity breaks in transport. Having more of the virus in the environment adds to everyone’s risk but, in Canada, the curve keeps dropping compared to the U.S, where they are reporting up to 300 new cases per week.
In Saskatchewan, Harvey Wagner, the manager of producer services with Sask Pork says a positive environmental sample of PED in Saskatchewan underscores the value of detailed inspection of trucks and equipment coming onto a producer’s farm.
In early March, Saskatchewan’s Chief Veterinary Officer reported the detection of a positive environmental sample for TGE and PED on dirty boots in a trailer which had returned to Saskatchewan after unloading hogs at an Iowa slaughter plant.
While the trailer had been washed and disinfected and was found to be free of virus, the boots had not been washed and were confirmed contaminated.
Wagner says what it really shows is that anyone can make small mistakes at many levels.
“It’s not surprising from time to time that there’ll be an error by somebody,” he said. “People are working hard, they’re working against time lines, they can miss something that would appear small but if you don’t pay really close attention and do a proper inspection you can miss it. I think what it really shows here is the power of inspection.”
Wagner says the farm had somebody look at that trailer, do a full inspection, they were ready to do some samples. They had a sample kit along to test for PED and so they did that and it showed a clean truck, but not the boots.
“If we don’t inspect, if we don’t properly look at that type of thing you can spread it,” he said. “If the driver had used those dirty boots on a farm he’d be tracking PED all over a farm.
It’s just that simple. What it means is that our farms have to be sure to do a thorough inspection of all the trucks prior to having them come onto the farm if at all possible.”
Wagner says just because one part of the truck looks clean, the other part of the truck or some of the tools and equipment may not. Many operators now provide clean clothing for the driver to use while on their farms to be sure there is much less chance of any issues. •
— By Harry Siemens