Pork producers in Manitoba are advised to be additionally careful as increased numbers of pigs that have recovered from PED move to finish or slaughter and as manure from infected swine barns is spread on fields.
Extreme winter weather made disinfecting swine barns difficult making it more challenging to bring Manitoba's Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea outbreak under control.
Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network Manager Dr. Jette Christensen says this outbreak has been underway for six months and pigs from some infected sow barns and nurseries are now going into finishing stages or to slaughter.
Clip-Dr. Jette Christensen-Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network:
We have this wave of recovered pigs going through the finishing barns and the abattoirs right now and that means that sometimes they've had to move pigs from nurseries to finishing barns that have not previously been infected and then they declare them infected just because they have recovered pigs.
There's quite a few of those movements included in those over 100 premises that are just contact because they are recovered pigs.
And also, there is a pressure on the slaughter plants now that they are going to take in recovered pigs.
They generally slaughter them Thursday Friday, so end of the week.
But again, that makes docks and vehicles that come to slaughter plants high risk for spreading PED.
So, for the next couple of months, where there will be more and more recovered finishers going through the slaughter, everybody should just assume that docks at slaughter are contaminated so extreme care needs to be taken.
When you bring vehicles back to the barns they need to be cleaned and disinfected properly.
Dr. Christensen says the other issue, when you have over 100 premises infected going into manure spreading season, is that some of these premises will have to spread their manure so extreme care should be taken when that's happening.
Source : Farmscape.ca