The Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork says the success of efforts to control Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in Manitoba is drawing international attention.Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, a viral gastrointestinal infection that affects all types of pigs with the most devastating impact on newly born piglets, was first introduced into the United States in 2013 and in Canada, specifically in Manitoba, in 2014.Jenelle Hamblin, the Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork, says, since the introduction of Manitoba's PED elimination plan in the spring of 2023, numbers of cases have declined.
Quote-Jenelle Hamblin-Manitoba Pork:
We have seen three large scale outbreaks of PED in Manitoba but, as I mentioned, our first cases were back in 2014.We did see cases through 14, 15 and 16 however they were numbers less than 10, total across those three years.In 2017 is when we saw our largest outbreak to date at that point, 80 cases overall.Year over year we did see ups and downs, a roller coaster as I like to call it, through 2018 and then another large outbreak in 2019 with 82 cases, a quieter year in 2020.
Of course, the pandemic was at play there and there wasn't a lot of people moving at that point.You don't move people; you don't move disease.Then in 21, 22, that was our largest outbreak of PED that we've seen to date totalling over 120 cases in that time frame.Since then, I'm happy to report that PED cases have been on the decline.