Thursday, June 20, 2013

Pig virus now in 13 states


The new virus, Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, has now spread to 13 states, reports Montserrat Torremorell, the Allen D. Leman Chair in Swine Health and Productivity at the University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Torremorell says there have been more than 100 cases positively identified as the virus.

It first showed up in China where more than one million pigs died.

The U.S. hog industry has been on high alert, warned to practice tight biosecurity to prevent the spread of the virus that is particularly deadly to piglets.

It does not affect people.

Canadians, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, various hog-industry associations and swine veterinarians, have been repeatedly warning farmers and anyone connected to hog farming to be extremely careful to avoid bringing the virus into the country.

The swine industry has a poor track record for containing outbreaks of highly-infectious diseases. For example, when a new strain of swine influenza showed up in Ontario in 2009, despite warnings to take biosecurity precautions, the virus swept right across the province in a matter of several weeks.