The Ontario Pork Council is asking farmers and partners in
the industry for ideas to step up biosecurity to keep Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea
virus out of the province.
It has spread so far and wide in the United States now that
there is little realistic hope that it will ever be eliminated.
That means that hopes of keeping it out of Canada depend on
persistent vigilance and discipline.
The Ontario Pork Council has led the way in already taking
the following measures:
1.
Separation of US contact and Ontario contact loading chutes.
2.
Separating US contact scrape out from Ontario scrape out.
3.
Biosecurity controls for foot traffic.
4. Stopping
washing and communal scrape out in the US (because these sites may increase the
viral load on returning trucks).
5.
Increasing the number of dedicated trailers.
6.
Auditing and improving wash bay procedures and protocols.
7. Using
dry disinfectants on trailers and load chutes.
8.
Constructing “transfer stations” at the level of loading chutes to reduce the
risk of infecting pigs remaining in
the facilities due to contamination from dirty trailers.
9. Testing
trailers for prevalence of PED virus.
10.
Increasing communication about PED prevention measures to the Ontario pork production industry.
11.
Working on index case containment and elimination plans.
Ontario is
apparently far ahead of most other Canadian provinces, but they will need to
step up as well because once the disease shows up in Canada, there will be an
additional challenge to keep it out of Ontario.
