Monday, December 15, 2014

Swine virus shows up in Alberta

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.