By Bruce Cochrane
A Camrose, Alberta based swine veterinarian is advising pork producers who use blood plasma products in feed to take steps to ensure those products do not contain porcine blood plasma.
As the result of concerns over the risks associated with the potential spread of PED through the use of blood plasma products, we are now seeing certified bovine origin PED tested blood plasma products becoming available for use.
Dr. Frank Marshall, with Marshall Swine Health Services, told those participating in a PED telephone town Hall Meeting hosted by Alberta Pork last week, caution is advised when sourcing these products.
Dr. Frank Marshall-Marshall Swine Health Services:
From the veterinary community the use of swine origin blood products is still not to be recommended.
The HACCP certified plasma processing that goes on if properly done, again if properly done, should have killed any infectious risk.
However the suppliers have never come forward with how it was that a plasma arrived in Canada with infectious virus.
Again, people like the OIE and many others have put forward many very confusing comments regarding the safety of products like blood plasma claiming that the Canadians were out to lunch in terms of how this entered our industry but I'll tell you it is very clear to the vet community involved in the initial 17 sow herds that broke in Ontario there's no question how this came.
It sounds like we're flogging a dead horse here but it's been exasperating to still see comments coming out of news agencies around the world that Canada couldn't prove the feed source and such but never the less we all know the story.
Dr. Marshall stresses producers need to ask about the origin of these bovine blood plasma products and the plants they come from to ensure that they're only bovine origin and they're not mixed with porcine.
Source: Farmscape