Be afraid. Be very afraid.

There are still some gaps in Canada’s defences against foreign animal disease (FAD) say two veterinarians asked to address preparedness during the Banff Pork Seminar in January.

Chris Byra of Byra Consulting in Chilliwack, B.C. and Scott Dee of Pipestone Veterinary services in Alexandra, Min. discussed the potential that still exists for a catastrophic outbreak that would wreak havoc and cost billions in clean-up and lost revenue.

“(This is) a fairly scary topic. We’re certainly in a better position than we were about three or four years ago, but we’re definitely not ready,” said Byra.

He chose the devastating outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in the UK during 2001 as a worst-case scenario and how a similar outbreak could strike in Canada. The probability of and occurrence is quite small, he said. But the impact could be huge.

Because of its dependence on export markets, Canada is more vulnerable than the United States and some other pork-producing countries, said Byra. He stated four areas where Canada needs to improve its security against FADs: Prevention, early detection, effective response and recovery. The industry needs to pressure the federal government to raise border control standards and to take stronger measures against bio-terrorism, said Byra.

Producers, veterinarians and government officials must also be prepared to move quickly at the slightest suspicion of a FAD and the industry should be prepared to take emergency measures and implement voluntary movement control without waiting for a minister’s order, he said.

The number of animals killed in the United Kingdom would have been half what it was if action had been taken two days sooner, said Byra.

Along with movement control, he recommended six additional strategies during the response phase, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s involvement with infected sites and control zones.

Institution of a livestock movement interruption strategy (LMIS); institution of emergency response plans developed by industry and government; engagement with the FTP (federal, territorial, provincial) industry network and value-chain partners to deal with decision making and market interruption, and an increase in the number of practitioners in the Veterinary Reserve. Within those parameters, Byra said one of the big gaps, especially in Alberta, is the lack of facility to deal with a large-scale depopulation.

Ontario veterinarian Doug McDougald, who led his province’s response to the outbreak in 2013 of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, suggested the installation of command centres that would be available to manage and control the response to an outbreak.

“We talk about this throughout our entire careers, on what it will take to be prepared for foreign animal disease. There’s lots of stuff in play, but, in actual fact, I don’t believe we’ll ever make an investment to truly prepare for foreign animal disease because we’re investing in insurance,” said McDougald.

“If we use industry command centres with defined responsibilities, with communications and divvy up the responsibilities with the provincial boards and CFIA, and address our current endemic diseases . . . that returns economic returns to our industry,” he said.

Dee outlined programs at play and then discussed what the US industry learned after the PEDv outbreak there.

While not confirmed, the theory is that the virus was most likely brought to the US in container shipments from China, said Dee. He showed images of massive amounts of soy spread on hot pavement to dry, where it is exposed to all measure of vermin and contaminants.

Tests conducted in the US on Seneca virus, classic swine fever virus and bovine herpes virus indicated that all three will, and they will survive the crossing from China to San Francisco in soy bean meal and soy cake and that the Seneca virus surrogate also survived in lysine and wet dog food.

“People are getting ready to build on this work and starting to look at other things that are related to risk in feed. But these are the first object data providing proof of concept that feed ingredients could serve as vehicles for foreign animal disease entering our continent,” said Dee.

He said the research continues and three outcomes are expected at this point: Raise the awareness of the risk, identify high-risk combinations and validate litigation strategies that might have application in the real world.

The next steps are to affect significant at the industry level to protect all livestock industries. Require treatment before risky products such as soy products pet foods, sausages and sausage casings come onto the continent or stop buying them altogether. “It doesn’t have to get into the pig barns, it just has to get into the country,” he said.

“Once some of these agents get into the country, it’s pretty easy for them to move around mechanically or airborne or things like that.

“It’s scary, and you never really know what’s going on until you start digging around.” •

— By Brenda Kossowan