SIP Research Helps Determine Safety of Previously PED Infected Manure Storages

Research that looked at the infectivity of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in stored manure is helping provincial animal health officials and pork producers determine when it's safe to declare a PED infected farm free of the virus.

As part of research conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Pork, scientists with Alberta Agriculture, Alberta Pork and the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization examining the infectivity of PED virus in stored manure determined that, after 6.5 months, the virus becomes inactive and incapable of causing disease.

Javier Bahamon, the Quality Assurance and Production Manager with Alberta Pork, says this suggests we can shorten the amount of time it takes for a farm to be declared presumptive negative and no longer a risk to other farms.

Clip-Javier Bahamon-Alberta Pork:

The first goal is to really understand the dynamics of the virus within the manure storage. We have plenty of literature telling us about the signs and other ways of the virus affects the pigs and the environment of the pigs in the pen.

The manure itself was one of the areas where we didn't have much information on which to rely to make decisions to make sure that that specific portion of the production is not posing any risk to further spread the disease.

Bahamon says the first beneficiary of this effort will be the pork producer who will be able to shorten the period of time required to achieve presumptive negative status and return to normal operations.He says the Alberta government, specifically Alberta Agriculture, and Alberta Pork will be able to reference this work when developing strategies for managing the next PED outbreak that happens in the province.