Farmscape for April 30, 2009   (Episode 3170)

Manitoba's chief veterinary officer is calling for strict adherence to established biosecurity protocols on farms, close monitoring of swine herds and immediate reporting of signs of illness.

Although many species can contract influenza viruses, many of these viruses prefer specific host species.

Yesterday Dr. Wayne Lees told reporters, while the strain reported in Mexico originated from avian, human and swine strains and has been named swine influenza, there is no indication that it's been transferred to or from any pig herds but ongoing biosecurity is crucial.

Clip-Dr. Wayne Lees-Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives
We want to stress two things.

First of all, biosecurity needs to be top notch during this time.

The second thing is that if they have any signs of illness in any swine herds that we want to encourage those folks to contact their veterinarian so that we can collect samples and then send them in to the veterinary diagnostic lab.

The commercial swine producers have a protocol that they've laid out and it's very detailed in terms of not allowing people to access their barns who don't need to be there.

There was an unfortunate incident reported on the news last night where a film crew went into a swine barn.

That's exactly the wrong thing to do.

We want to encourage producers to restrict access to their swine barn, anybody who's feeling ill should not be working in a swine barn, we want to ensure that their regular shower in-shower out practices are being adhered to so that we protect the pigs from any risk the people might pose.

Dr. Lees stresses we have not had any cases in pigs, we don't slaughter sick animals and the cooking process eliminates any bacteria or virus so this is not a food safety issue and there's no reason to avoid pork.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council