By Bruce Cochrane
With the onset of flu season, pork producers are being encouraged to take steps to protect their herds from influenza.
The latest Canada-West Swine Health Intelligence Network report indicates, while western Canada's swine herd is generally healthy and strong, influenza is always a risk.
Dr. Susan Detmer, an Assistant Professor in Veterinary Pathology with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says the summer is usually quiet and we haven't seen a lot of influenza over the summer but, as the season changes, the risk will increase.
Dr. Susan Detmer-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:
In the spring we had a number of incidents where humans had the pandemic strain, which is the seasonal virus for humans and they brought it onto farms and we had a number of outbreaks of pandemic strain H1N1 on farms.
We do expect that again this year.
So long as the governing bodies for human medicine still expect to see that virus, we expect to see it in pigs as well as humans.
We are definitely promoting, if you have a lot of people that have children at home, get vaccinated, make sure everyone is vaccinated with the seasonal vaccine to keep people from shedding the human viruses.
If you have a high risk or you've seen pandemic strain on your farm, you should look into and consult your veterinarian about a pandemic H1N1 vaccine for your herd.
It's less expensive to vaccinate the people than it is the pigs but some farms have found that they have to do both because they've had a number of problems with that strain.
Dr. Detmer says we're expecting to see more of the alpha H1N2 that we've seen for the past three years and there are a few strains of H3N2 that we've seen over the summer that have been particularly bad for the pigs.
She says those who have had problems over the summer, will likely have a lot of trouble in the winter with those.
Source: Farmscape