An Alberta based swine veterinarian warns, despite success in the United States this summer in dealing with PED, the U.S. continues to pose a risk to swine herds in Canada.
Although the number of positive tests for Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea have continued to drop this summer in the U.S. 34 states remain positive.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, with Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer, told Alberta Pork's monthly telephone town hall last week maintaining control will become more difficult as temperatures drop.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff-Prairie Swine Health Services:
They're typically seeing 38 positives out of around 580 samples per week now and so fewer active cases in the United States.
The number of new premises being reported as positive continues to drop as well.
Of course such a significant proportion of the U.S. sow herd is positive now that this is to be expected.
There just isn't many new sites left that haven't seen the virus.
Certainly a lot of the farms that were involved with the outbreaks have heavily invested in vaccination for control once they've become positive.
The overwhelming thought is still the vaccines probably have the greatest value when they are administered in the herds that are already positive.
As we move into the fall, certainly we expect to see the number of positives go back up.
It'll be more difficult to wash trailers and transports, it'll be more difficult to keep assembly sites clean and disinfected and so we expect the virus to continue to circulate through the United States and so that maintains a significant risk to our herd here in Canada.
Dr. Brockhoff says the good news is, if we are faced with increased sow herd exposure in Canada, we do have stronger tools today than we had two years ago.
Source: Farmscape