After over a year of being free of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) in Manitoba, the hog virus has infected a sow barn in southeastern Manitoba as of May 26.
Manitoba Pork general manager Andrew Dickson says this isn't a huge shock because of the volume of trucks going to and from the U.S., where he says PEDv on farms is almost at the point of being endemic — but he says it is preventable.
"There are places in the United States that have never had the disease, and there are farms in the area where the disease is prevalent and they've never had the disease. If you practice very high biosecurity and wash and disinfect your trailers properly, there's no reason we can't keep this disease out of our farms — but it requires constant vigilance," he says.
Prior to this incident, PEDv hadn't been detected in Manitoba since January 2015. This recent case of PEDv comes just less than a month after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) lifted emergency transportation protocol on hog transport vehicles at the U.S. border.
The emergency regulations required truck drivers to seal livestock trailers at the border upon returning to Canada and travel immediately to a Canadian wash station to disinfect. Since these temporary regulations have been changed back to the previous protocol, truckers are now required to wash down at a U.S. station before returning to Canada. But the concern here is that American wash stations use recycled water.
Manitoba Pork general manager Andrew Dickson says at the moment they don't have any evidence that the recent case of PEDv is linked to the regulation change, however, he adds there's no question the potential spread of disease has increased with this reverted protocol.
Source : Portageonline