PED Infectivity in Stored Manure Dissipates Faster than Suspected

Research conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc suggests the infectivity of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea contaminated manure in lagoons dissipates more quickly than previously suspected. On behalf of Swine Innovation Pork, researchers with Alberta Agriculture, Alberta Pork and the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization have been examining the infectivity of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in stored manure.

Javier Bahamon, the Quality Assurance and Production Manager with Alberta Pork, explains samples were collected from manure lagoons on farms that had experienced PED six months earlier and litters of piglets were exposed to the virus it contained.

Clip-Javier Bahamon-Alberta Pork:

What we found is that after exposure of these animals, the animals didn't present any clinical signs of the disease. We couldn't find any evidence that the virus was active on the piglets. The PCR on the pigs were negative and there weren't any clinical signs of the virus that were exposed to different litters.

With that, after 6.5 months, the virus was not active or viable to produce disease in these animals. The significance is that we can really shorten the periods of what we declare a farm to be infected and a risk to other farms.

That obviously gives the producers less time to be in presumptive negative and being negative where they can resume business as normal. It's a very short period of time from when they get infected to when we can declare a negative site.