The deadly Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus could be
lingering at any high-traffic area, such as hog assembly yards, warns
veterinarian and epidemiologist Dr. Julia Keenslide of Alberta Agriculture and
Rural Development.
That means hog farmers ought to be on alert and insist
that trucks coming to their farms are cleaned, washed and disinfected, she
says.
She told farmers participating in a conference call that
delta coronvirus showed up recently in a sample collected at an outdoor loading
chute that had been cleaned as best as possible, yet the virus persisted in the
cold weather.
The sample was one of more than 5,000 the Alberta
government has tested from assembly yards, three packing plants and two truck
washes.
She said the site has subsequently tested negative so she
assumes that all of Alberta’s sites are negative for now “but we do remind
people that any time, even in between these negative tests, there could be
potential contamination from trucks coming in from other provinces.”
Alberta has had no outbreaks, but Manitoba has had several
and Ontario has had 67 since January.
Ontario got on top of the spread during warm summer
weather with no cases from July 21 to Nov. 20.
But then there was an outbreak at a nursery barn in Perth County,
an outbreak in a finisher barn in the Niagara Region on Dec. 2 traced to an
out-of-province source followed by another outbreak in a finisher barn in
Oxford County that has been linked to the one in the Niagara area.
