Pork Producers Encouraged to Pay Particular Attention to Biosecurity Heading into Spring and Summer

The Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork is advising pork producers to be paying particular attention to biosecurity at high traffic areas heading into the spring and summer.Last spring blisters identified on culled sows heading from Canada to the U.S. for slaughter, which were ultimately shown to be caused by Seneca Valley virus, triggered a series of foreign animal disease investigations prompting USDA to halt the import of culled sows until foreign animal disease was ruled out.

Jenelle Hamblin, the Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork, says we have never seen a case of Seneca Valley virus on farm in Manitoba but it has popped up at high traffic areas.

Quote-Jenelle Hamblin-Manitoba Pork:

The main concern with Seneca Valley virus is how it mimics foreign animal disease.The clinical signs of Seneca Valley virus are the same and indistinguishable from foreign animal diseases such as Foot and Mouth disease and swine vesicular disease.You see lesions or vesicles on the nose and the coronary band of the feet.

Being those symptoms are indistinguishable from very scary foreign animal diseases, we do need to ensure that those foreign animal diseases are not present.
We do have lots of screening activities in place at our assembly yards to watch for Seneca.We're coming off of a more quiet time frame and getting our prevention and awareness campaign ramped up coming into spring and summer, being that's when we have seen it pop up in the past.

Two years of experience and having this virus show up primarily in the spring and summer months does lead me to believe that its environmental stability is perhaps a little bit more enhanced in the spring and summer.Those warmer temperatures perhaps allow it to be more stable in the environment.Again, purely speculation.

I have no data to support that, other than the fact of that that's really what we've seen in the past two years with clinical signs being more apparent starting in that June, July, August time frame, which is really why we are focusing on awareness and putting out information to our producers now, to build that awareness of what we need to be watching for come the spring.

Hamblin says whether it's Seneca Valley virus, PED or any other infection, biosecurity is key.