Farmscape for July 4, 2017

A surge in cases of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in Manitoba has prompted the Office of Saskatchewan's Chief Veterinary Officer to warn the province's pork producers to pay attention to vectors that could spread the virus.
Since the end of April over 40 cases of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea have been confirmed in southeastern Manitoba.
Dr. Wendy Wilkins, a Disease Surveillance Veterinarian with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says the risk for Saskatchewan producers of contracting PED on their farms increases with every new farm that breaks in Manitoba.

Clip-Dr. Wendy Wilkins-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
Initially we need to think about how PED got onto that first farm in the first place.
The most likely source of that is it was brought in on something.
It was brought in on equipment or a transport trailer that had picked it up in the environment, perhaps from the states or another place that already had PED.
Once it was in the area then it started to spread between farms.
Some of the things that contributed to this was direct movement of pigs between farms.
For example we would have a sow barn, they weren't showing signs, they would send pigs to the nursery and then the next day the sows break with clinical signs so then of course those nursery pigs are infected, taking it to a new location.
Shared staff between farms have been implicated.
Again, if you have people moving between different pigs barns and you don't know the virus is present in one barn, then it can contribute to the spread to another barn.
Shared equipment between farms, barn equipment that's taken outside and then taken back into the barn.
Sometimes it's not even a direct movement, that somebody or some pigs bring it into a barn but rather somebody or something brings it onto the farm site and then something else brings the virus into the barn.
There's a number of different things but essentially we have to consider every way the virus can travel and how it can cling to equipment and people and get into that barn.

Dr. Wilkins says swine producers and their service providers are the first line of defense in keeping this virus out of the province, simply by making sure they maintain strict biosecurity.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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