Manitoba PED Elimination Plan On Track

The Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork says, despite the confirmation of Manitoba's first case of PED in 2024, the province's PED elimination plan remains on track.Manitoba's first case of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in 2024 in a finisher barn in southeastern Manitoba has triggered full biocontainment as outlined in the Manitoba PED Elimination Plan and all producers within five kilometers of the infection have been advised to reach out to their herd veterinarians to discuss and implement enhanced biosecurity protocols.

Jenelle Hamblin, the Director, Swine Health with Manitoba Pork, acknowledges new cases were anticipated and planned for.

Quote-Jenelle Hamblin-Manitoba Pork:

Farms are now practicing what would have been considered enhanced biosecurity even seven or eight years ago, that's now standard practice and we've adapted and we've created ways of doing that that are not as onerous as maybe they once would have been.An understanding of how we can improve that level of biosecurity on farm and throughout the sector and implementing it on the ground, I think that's a real win for us since we started fighting this disease back in 2014 and then heavily in 2017.

A big portion of our Manitoba PED elimination plan is reflecting on what we have experienced in the past and implementing that knowledge into future direction. It's not supposed to be "we did it this way and that's how we're going to keep going." It's very much intentionally meant to be evergreen and reflective to our current disease pressures, our current production standards, biosecurity levels and risk that we have for the sector.It's very much a continual process and it's intended and it was designed to be that way.

We come a long way.We've gotten a lot better at biosecurity, the way we think about it and I think that's something that needs to be highlighted.

Hamblin says the infection was a disappointment however not unexpected and getting to December without any cases is positive and the objective of reducing the number of cases year over year working toward elimination is on track.