Dr. Afolakemi Adenjiii of Animal Health Canada advised hog farmers and workers to get vaccinated against influenza.
She was speaking to the Big Bug Day at Elora about avian influenza and the risk it could spread to hogs and people as it already has from migrating birds to poultry farms, dairy cattle and workers.
While the vaccine won’t protect against avian influenza, it will prevent people from being hit with a double whammy.
There has been only one case of infection in a pig- onOcdt. 30 in Oregon – and that pig was eating an infected duck.
Adenjii said the health concern is that the virus will jump from one species to another, mingle and become highly infectious and deadly and trigger a pandemic.
She therefore recommended that hog farmers keep other animals away from their pigs, such as poultry, cattle and horses.
The first case in a dairy cow was March 25 and since then there have been 691 cattle in 16 states infected, but none in Canada.
Canada has had 50 outbreaks in poultry in the last month, most of them in British Columbia and half of them in backyard flocks and half in commercial poultry operations.
She said farmers should keep birds, pigs from other places and mice out of their barns because they could transmit the virus.
