VIDEO (above): On-farm biosecurity with Manitoba Pork Pt. 1: Jenelle Hamblin with Manitoba Pork talks about biosecurity on hog farms and some of the best-practices pork producers should use to maintain a healthy herd.

Manitoba’s pork industry has been enjoying a relative calm on the disease front in when it comes to viruses such as PEDv (porcine epidemic diarrhea virus). Could this be the early results of Manitoba Pork’s plan – announced about two years ago – to help eliminate this deadly disease, and others such as PRRS (porcine reproductive and respirator syndrome), that have wreaked havoc on Manitoba’s pork sector in past years?

Maybe. At least one part of the organization’s plan was the implementation of biosecurity measures across the pork sector to discourage viruses from even getting a foothold. 

For this three-part video series, I wanted to find out more about the biosecurity measures that are being advocated by Manitoba Pork to the province’s hog producers. In order to so so, I met with Jenelle Hamblin, director of swine health for Manitoba Pork, to hear about some of the specific measures being taken to ensure biosecurity on hog farms and how these practices are being maintained.

VIDEO (above): On-farm biosecurity with Manitoba Pork Pt. 2: Jenelle Hamblin with Manitoba Pork talks about biosecurity practices during the transportation of hogs and how trailer washouts are performed to help eliminate disease spread.

VIDEO (above): On-farm biosecurity with Manitoba Pork Pt. 3: Jenelle Hamblin with Manitoba Pork talks about the current status of hog diseases in Manitoba and if there are any hotspots of concern for hog farms in the province.

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“These projects and the knowledge that we’re aiming to achieve through this research will contribute to the bottom line of pork producers and processors and will also build in Canada’s global leadership in pork production,” said Daniel Ramage, general manager of Swine Innovation Porc.

On Feb. 20, the federal government pledged up to $10.6 million for hog sector research. The funds, to be stewarded by Swine Innovation Porc, will launch the fourth hog research cluster under the federal agri-science program, part of the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal news release said.

It is the latest in several cluster announcements made by the federal government. Clusters for canola and pulses have also been announced.

Research on the table

SIP, a research and development non-profit directed by the federal and provincial pork councils, also co-ordinated the previous three hog clusters.

The group says it will spend up to $20.1 million in combined government and industry funds over the next five years on the sector’s research priorities. These include climate change and the environment, sector resilience, economic growth and communication and knowledge transfer, a release said.

Planned research includes two vaccine-related projects, said Ramage. One involves testing a new oral delivery method for vaccines. The other is related to a new vaccine for PEDv, which has been a scourge for Manitoba’s pork sector since 2017.

Canadian producers have access to PEDv vaccines, but they haven’t been ideal. One PEDv outbreak brought vaccine from Saskatchewan’s VIDO-InterVac to Manitoba farms, Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork’s swine health director told the Co-operator last summer. However, it was expensive and had little benefit for animals with no previous exposure to PEDv.

Another U.S.-based vaccine is available, Hamblin said, but import requires special permission from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Researchers will also look at antimicrobial alternatives, specifically tools to improve gut health, Ramage said. This may include amino acids or probiotics.

The industry has been pressured to reduce antibiotic use. Manitoba Pork told its members in 2022 that the sector is unlikely to escape regulation on the issue due to global concern about antibiotic resistant bacteria and their effect on human health.

Under the heading of emissions and environment, projects will look at feed formulations and strategies to reduce phosphorus runoff and nitrogen concentration in manure, SIP said in an explainer document.

Ramage said they’d also look at manure storage and digesters to reduce environmental impact and understand the economics around such practices. Other research will explore genetics, feeding strategies, meat quality and other topics.

The post PEDv vaccine among funded research projects appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That’s a question asked of Dr. Julia Keenliside at the Manitoba Swine Seminar.

“Everybody’s got to work out what your procedures are, because that happens,” said Keenliside, an Edmonton-based swine veterinary expert.

Why it matters: If a person can get into the barn, so can a virus or bacteria.

It’s one of many biosecurity dangers that can arise at load out, and an under-appreciated source of disease risk.

“The load out should be seen as a high-risk event,” said Keenliside. “We forget about the load-out. We think about the front door.”

Some veterinarians think more disease enters barns through unwashed trucks and animals than operators realize. Keenliside suggested producers read Dr. Blaine Tully’s 2020 column in The Western Producer to develop the right thinking about truck and load out risks.

Although there isn’t sufficient research to be certain, there are reasons to believe disease-carrying dust, mud, manure and snow on the backs of trucks can be transferred into barns at the load out. Farms should take it seriously, Tully wrote.

Loading docks were also flagged as risk zones during Manitoba’s string of porcine epidemic diarrhea outbreaks beginning in 2017. Producers were urged to watch sanitation and biosecurity at such sites, have a defined line of separation between the “clean” areas inside the facility and the “dirty” areas anywhere else, and ensure truck drivers have fresh sets of disposable footwear when they step out of the cab.

Conversations about managing dust as a vector for PED have also made the rounds of industry groups and farm media.

“That’s what’s interesting about the ‘grey’ literature,” said Keenliside, referring to publications like farm magazines, conference proceedings, industry publications and other sources of non-peer-reviewed information. “We have some of the cutting-edge thinking.”

The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network has compiled a study and a tips sheet about load out biosecurity. Most barn systems don’t follow all veterinarian recommendations, so “we’ve got room for improvement.”

Beyond improving basic biosafety protocols, producers can look to more fundamental improvements, such as barn design. Keenliside said Minnesota adopted a two-door system that created a load-in chute and a load-out chute.

“That way, they never have to load pigs through a dirty chute; they never have to take deads out of the same chute they’re bringing in new stock, such as gilts,” said Keenliside.

In China, some farms are walled off from the outside world and pigs are brought in from the edge of the property.

“The trucker never even comes on the farm,” said Keenliside, while noting that Canada’s winter conditions make many ideas from warmer places harder to implement.

Beyond facility design, a key risk control is to stop people from going where they’re not supposed to go at the load out. Barn workers should not go beyond the barn edge and truckers should not come in from the truck.

A simple device, like a metal bar high enough to let the pigs under but high enough to block people, can effectively stop unsafe human traffic, seminar attendees heard.

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“Starting the plan ahead of potential new cases will help farmers implement the preventative measures included [in] the plan and allow us to broadly discuss the plan with producers and industry service providers,” the farm group wrote in an Oct. 18 newsletter.

Why it matters: Industry has said that the every-other-year PED cycle in Manitoba is not sustainable.

Manitoba has suffered successive PED crises since 2017. That year, the province went from a handful of cases since it was found in 2014, to 80 in 2017 alone. That was followed by another record-breaking outbreak in 2019, when 82 infections were confirmed.

That same year, an analysis run by MNP, based on 2019 market numbers, suggested that an outbreak on a Hutterite colony would translate to a financial hit of about $187,400, or $468 per sow, on a 400-head farrow-to-finish operation.

Most of 2021 looked like it might break the cycle. No cases were found in early summer, when previous outbreaks had surged. Those hopes were dashed in October. Fall cases would again be the worst PED outbreak on record. By the time it petered out a year later, 132 sites had been infected.

That outbreak was noted for its unusual timing. The cold months had heralded the tail end of past outbreaks, but cases spiked through the winter of 2021-22.

Faced with a repeating pattern, the pork council promised a PED elimination plan early last year. A working group was set up to investigate strategies in other regions and develop an approach that would work for Manitoba. Producers got a first look at the plan in November 2022.

The framework

In June of this year, Manitoba Pork unveiled the finished framework.

The elimination plan aims to see infections cut in half year-over-year and, by 2027, erase 96 per cent of infections in the high-risk area of southeastern Manitoba.

That region saw the province’s first cases back in 2014 and has been the worst hit in every outbreak.

Other goals include better biosecurity in general, having barns spend less time infected and a gradual drop of PED-infected manure storage.

“The potential risk of PED remains high from environmental sources such as manure application for many years after a premises is infected. This risk is amplified following a large-scale PED outbreak,” the text of the plan reads.

The plan includes outlines for biosecurity, controlled animal movement, traffic control, surveillance, containment and rapid and aggressive response, including humane depopulation.

“As much as possible,” pigs in the high-risk zone should not leave the region until slaughter, “and pre-movement testing should be done when moving one site to another as outlined by the surveillance plan,” the document states.

If there is an infection, no animals come off the site for four weeks, exempting shipments needed for animal welfare or, if in some cases, they are considered low risk. Those exceptions will be granted case by case with collaboration from Manitoba’s Chief Veterinary Officer, the plan reads.

If five or more barns test positive within five kilometres, all farms in that radius will be tested weekly.

Infected sow barns will aim for a six-week gap in production, while farrow operations have a target of four to six weeks.

“Herd immunity against PED will be enhanced through backfeeding of infected material, and subsequent sow vaccination,” the plan says.

Farrow-to-finish operations will have a similar six-week goal, no shipments off the site for five weeks after backfeeding and no movements except for direct-to-slaughter for eight weeks.

The plan notes that new vaccines are being developed in the U.S. and trials are happening in Canada.

Battening the hatches

The pork industry is expecting the next PED wave in 2024.

With the elimination plan in place, the council hopes to cap that outbreak at 65 cases and cut it shorter than what was seen in past problem years.

For the rest of 2023, Manitoba Pork’s short-term strategy is to spread as much information about the plan as possible to producers in the high-risk zone.

The producer group wants farmers in that range to know, in detail, how the plan is being rolled out, the prevention that sites should have in place and what their farm’s role will be if there is a PED confirmation in the area.

Producers are asked to discuss the elimination framework with their veterinarians and develop plans for prevention and intervention on their individual farms.

The post PED elimination plan takes the gloves off appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“The long-term impacts of a major PED outbreak every other year is not sustainable,” the plan document says.

The pork council posted the PED roadmap to its website in early June and will spend the next month rolling it out to farmers and other stakeholders.

Why it matters: Manitoba is coming off its third major outbreak in six years. The Manitoba Pork Council would like to put that track record in the rear-view mirror.

PED can cause illness in pigs of all ages, but it’s usually fatal to newborn piglets under 10 days old. Dehydration, caused by watery diarrhea and vomiting characteristic of the virus, is the main threat. It kills 60 to 100 per cent of infected suckling pigs, according to materials published by the pork council. Piglets “waste away.”

Although feeders mostly recover, animals can become thin as they fight off the disease.

PED does not affect humans and it is not a food safety issue.

Since the virus reached Manitoba in 2014, it has caused serious financial loss to the sector. Major outbreaks blazed through the province in 2017, 2019 and 2021-22, with the largest recorded in the last two years.

Starting in fall 2021, 134 premises became infected or reinfected by the time the calendar switched to 2023. In mid-June last year, the province’s office of the chief veterinary officer estimated that 95,000 to 105,000 sows (based on barn capacity) had been impacted by the outbreak. Around a dozen cases were reported in 2022 after that estimate.

There has also been geographic spread. Southeastern Manitoba, where PED was first confirmed in 2014, remains a hot zone for the virus but cases have also been found in the northeast, central, southwest and the Interlake.

“Despite the sector’s commitment and best efforts, it was apparent that PED management and containment efforts needed to be reviewed,” the new plan reads.

Last year, the pork council announced a targeted effort to develop ways to break the cycle. A working group was formed, consulting with producers, veterinarians, academics and other stakeholders to develop a plan.

After studying strategies employed in other areas, the group decided elimination of the disease is the best option for Manitoba.

The vision

The framework’s goal is to eliminate 96 per cent of PED infections in the high-risk area (southeastern Manitoba) by 2027. Based on current outbreak case numbers, that would bring infections down to no more than 10 cases per year.

“We know we are going to continue to have risk,” said Jenelle Hamblin, director of swine health with Manitoba Pork.

Manitoba will continue to have contact with other regions where PED is prevalent, she noted. Also, the virus will continue to live in manure lagoons for some time.

However, the hope is that with strong containment procedures and few cases, any new outbreaks will be quickly stamped out.

The plan outlines four key outcomes: enhanced biosecurity across the sector; a 50 per cent reduction in cases year over year; reducing the time an infected farm needs to beat the virus; and decreasing the number of contaminated manure storages.

Biosecurity

PED outbreaks have already led producers to beef up normal biosecurity, Hamblin said.

“What was once considered enhanced biosecurity is actually now kind of commonplace in a lot of farms [in the high-risk area],” she said.

However, the council’s plan will encourage farms in the high-risk area to adopt “wartime” biosecurity — measures usually reserved for farms inside the buffer zone of an active PED infection.

Manitoba Pork will not prescribe exact biosecurity measures for farms. Each operation will be expected to develop plans with veterinarians to suit their situation.

The council knows heightened biosecurity will put more pressure and costs on farms, Hamblin said. It has added recommendations to the plan but knows farms will have to work out their own preferred systems.

For instance, she said, it’s better for biosecurity if one person does not visit three barn sites in one day. However, workers won’t appreciate working every weekend, and it may not be realistic to have three people check on three sites.

Surveillance

The council hopes all farms will adopt a surveillance program with regular testing for PED. That way, infections can be caught early and movement of infected pigs — a noted driver of PED spread — can be avoided, even if the infected animals have yet to show symptoms.

The PED framework includes two suggestions. Farms could test groups of pigs for PED on the week they’re scheduled for transport. Alternatively, producers could test barns weekly, regardless of scheduled movement.

The council based its ideas on surveillance plans already used on some farms that have proven effective, Hamblin said.

Manitoba Pork will continue to survey high-risk areas like abattoirs and assembly yards, added general manager Cam Dahl.

‘Rapid and aggressive’

Finally, the plan will rely on “rapid and aggressive” elimination of new infections.

This isn’t to say past responses haven’t been rapid or aggressive, Hamblin said. However, with increased surveillance, infections can be identified sooner, allowing for quicker response.

A baseline scenario in the framework shows an immediate lockdown of a farm with a suspected infection, with no movement of animals off the site for a minimum of four weeks.

An example sow barn in the plan aims to create a six-week gap in production through euthanasia or abortion of piglets, and disinfection after piglets are removed.

The framework also references “backfeeding” and vaccination of pigs to create herd immunity.

Backfeeding refers to exposure of pigs to the PED virus, such as through infected manure. This suggestion has not been popular with producers, Hamblin said.

“It’s super intensive and high risk,” she said. “It was not met with a lot of support.”

Vaccines are also problematic. A PED vaccine from Saskatchewan’s VIDO-InterVac arrived in Manitoba during a previous outbreak and saw widespread uptake, Hamblin said. However, it proved mostly useful for boosting immunity in pigs that had already been exposed to PED and didn’t do much for naïve animals. It was also expensive.

Another U.S.-based vaccine is available but producers must apply to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to have it brought into Manitoba. Only a few farms have done so, Hamblin said.

VIDO-InterVac is looking to improve its vaccine’s effectiveness and make it more affordable, she added.

Voluntary measures

The framework rests entirely on producer co-operation. Farms won’t be forced to comply.

“If we get to the point that we have to use regulations to enforce [it], it’s not working,” Dahl said.

Many producers have already experienced the financial and mental health impacts of dealing with PED, Hamblin noted. Even being a PED-negative farm in a buffer zone can be stressful.

The post Pork sector has new playbook against PED appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The draft plan’s goal is to eliminate 96 per cent of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) infections by 2027, according to the presentation at the Nov. 1 producer meeting. Details are pending.

The draft showed objectives to reduce the number of infected farms over time; shorten the time farms take to reach transitional status; develop farm-level protocols for PED management; and enhance biosecurity sector-wide.

[RELATED] Managing Manitoba’s growing animal disease watch list

Interventions include rapid and aggressive responses, enhanced sow immunity and development of a PED elimination plan.

A PED working group has been developing the plan since early this year. It commissioned the Western College of Veterinary Medicine to study what other jurisdictions have done to contain PED, including major pork producing states like Iowa and Minnesota.

Some areas have “experimented” with living with the disease, Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl told producers, but “inevitably the solution comes back to the elimination of PED.”

The 96 per cent elimination figure is based on projections that the industry can “probably manage” 10 infections per year if it acts aggressively, said Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork’s manager of swine health.

From there, the industry will work to learn from each aggressive response and apply results to reduce cases further.

This year, weather and labour shortages lengthened the time it took to move a farm from a confirmed infection to a transitional stage of confirming the disease’s elimination, Hamblin said. The longer a farm stays positive for PED, the longer an outbreak will last.

Manitoba Pork also has plans to create a “one-stop shop” for PED information and planning, Hamblin said.

Producers have learned through outbreaks about how to strengthen biosecurity, she said, noting those better management practices need to be applied across the sector.

The post Manitoba Pork floats PED plan to producers appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That was the unfortunate news from Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl in the third week of June, with the province still embroiled in its most serious outbreak of the disease to date.

“This is the time of year where we traditionally see an uptick in cases and I’m concerned that that’s going to happen again and we’ll see a new wave,” he said. “I hope not, but I am concerned about that.”

Why it matters: The infamous neonatal disease is linked to 80 to 100 per cent losses of piglets in the first two weeks of life and comes with a serious financial hit for any infected barn.

As of June 15, Manitoba’s case count had reached 114 since the start of the 2021-22 outbreak, according to Dr. Glen Duizer of the province’s office of the chief veterinary officer (CVO).

• [READ MORE] Manitoba pork sector to hone PED strategy

Prior to 2021, Manitoba’s PED record sat at 82 cases in a single outbreak, registered in 2019.

The pork sector had held out some hope of a break in February. Cases had dropped off after the 74th confirmation and no new cases were discovered until a week into March.

The reprieve ended as spring 2022 got underway however. Between the start of March and start of June, about 30 additional cases were confirmed. Even more unfortunately, according to the hog sector, cases within the month of June included a new spate of sow barns — a class of barn that had not seen new cases since the end of March and, with young piglets taking the brunt of the virus, the largest hit to the sector.

Despite the gap, the province is treating current cases as the same outbreak that began in late October 2021.

“If you have a piglet that is three, four weeks of age that has been exposed to PED and ends up having it… even though they recover, they can periodically start shedding again any time throughout their life cycle,” Duizer said.

That pig must have cleared the value chain before the risk posed can likewise, can be considered clear.

“With that ongoing risk and with multiple farms continuing on and breaking, we see the risk extending out, and because the risk is extending out, the outbreak is extending out,” Duizer said.

• [READ MORE] Squeal on Pigs gets loud on wild swine

Roughly 95,000 to 105,000 sows have been affected by the outbreak, according to the CVO. Duizer stressed that those numbers are based on maximum capacity of premises, since an entire barn is considered infected once a single animal with PED is confirmed.

Of the 113 cases reported as of June 10, 86 were still positive, while 13 were transitioning, 13 were presumptive negative and one was considered totally cleared, according to Manitoba Pork. Barns are considered presumptive negative if all animals have been cleared, but PED risk remains in manure storage.

“We would have liked to see those positive cases transitioning a little bit faster as well,” Dahl said. “So yeah, it’s not the best of news on the PED front.”

Most cases in late May and the beginning of June were related to known animal movement, he said, although in a number of recent cases, the cause of infection is less clear.

Duizer noted, however, that new cases have been closely clustered to existing infections, which is more typical of past outbreaks, while a number of cases earlier this year had cropped up away from established buffer zones.

Those cases, he now said, were likely due to a human-error vector such as issues with transport cleaning and disinfection.

Outlook

It is not clear when the sector can expect the normal slowdown in cases, Duizer said.

The calendar has now ticked over into the typical risk period for PED, with manure spreading and other usual risk vectors in play.

• [READ MORE] Managing Manitoba’s growing animal disease watch list

“There is a lot of aggressive work to try and bring this under control and make that downtime happen,” he said, adding that the slowdown will, “certainly” be extended out into the fall.

“The implications of that is that we have a very large number of farms that have been infected and a lot of contamination on those farms that needs to be handled and dealt with so that it does not generate new cases,” he said.

One saving grace, Duizer noted, is that while Manitoba is seeing record numbers in the prolonged outbreak, it has not seen the sudden spikes of cases sometimes seen in May and June.

Flooding

Flood conditions may well increase PED risk, Duizer said, much like transportation and labour crunches exacerbated spread during the early months of 2021. He stressed, however, that he does not have hard evidence that links specific cases to flood-related vectors.

At the same time, he reasoned, flooding did limit transportation on certain roads, complicating biosecure routing used by the sector to curb disease spread.

“Flooding, road closures and the limitations that it might create for manure application, all of those things put pressure on managing the risk and, when you do that, then the risk gets higher,” he said.

Southeastern Manitoba, which has seen all but four cases in 2022, also saw serious flooding along the Red River Valley and widespread overland flooding this year. It is the first time the region has seen such widespread flooding since before the first PED outbreak to breach double digits in 2017.

Dahl argued that Manitoba Pork did not see an impact from flooding on PED response.

He also said that no lagoons were overrun from the flooding, since barns and lagoons are built to the levels of the 1997 ‘Flood of the Century.’

Working group

Results from a value-chain working group, announced earlier this year and with a mandate to evaluate PED control in other regions and how they might apply to Manitoba, is now expected in July, Dahl said.

“I can say that the working group has looked at quite a number of the different options, whether it’s just treating it as an endemic disease or continuing on with the eradication,” he said.

Veterinarians, producers, the CVO, and groups like the Western College of Veterinary Medicine have been cited as part of the working group.

Manitoba Pork had originally hoped to release findings earlier in the year.

The post PED cases still on the rise appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Manitoba’s office of the chief veterinary officer (CVO) is already occupied with the latest, and worst ever, eruption of PED—a virulent neonatal pig disease that, although no threat to humans, is well known to devastate young piglets. Now, however, the feather sector has its own boogeyman closing in.

Why it matters: Manitoba is in the grip of the worst PED outbreak on record while the threat of avian influenza has arrived. Is the province’s top veterinary office equipped to manage multiple outbreaks of multiple diseases? 

Manitoba is the latest on the list of Canadian provinces and U.S. states embroiled in what Wayne Hiltz, executive director of the Manitoba Chicken Producers, describes as a “continent wide” outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strain H5N1.

• Read more: Farmers buckling down with avian flu confirmed

Manitoba reported its first case April 23, in a poultry flock in the R.M. of Whitemouth. Days before, the province had confirmed samples taken from wild birds in two other locations, one near Waskada in the southwest, one near Dauphin, had also tested positive for H5N1. 

The outbreak, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) had said, is driven exclusively on the Canadian side by cross-contact with infected wild birds.

“The impacts of avian influenza are at both the infected farm level, as well as industry logistics, neighbouring farms and international trade. Even an outbreak in a back yard flock can impact a billion dollar industry,” Hiltz said.

In the U.S., the hit has been dire. By April 25, The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) had reported avian flu in 235 flocks across 29 states. An estimated 31.66 million commercial birds had been claimed or destroyed due to the virus 

Manitoba’s nearest southern neighbour, North Dakota, had reported 13 farm cases.

Spring, and the return of migratory birds from some of the most impacted states to Manitoba, has raised local concern.

Canada saw it’s own cases starting in December. Cases in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia heralded the first serious return of the virus in Canada since 2014-2015. In late March, the first Ontario farms broke, followed by several cases in Alberta.

By April 11, 260,000 farm birds had died or been destroyed, according to the CFIA. As of April 21, the most recent update, that number had grown to 35 farm outbreaks, affecting over 717,000 birds, including 350,000 in Alberta, 90,000 in Saskatchewan and 250,000 in Ontario. 

In the four days since that update, the CFIA had reported an additional three cases in Saskatchewan, four in Alberta, two in Ontario and one in Quebec, as well as the first case in Manitoba.

Tools in place

Cam Dahl, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council, worries that the CVO’s resources might be stretched, should another disease fight arise.

As of April 12, the province had confirmed 94 PED cases as part of the 2021-2022 outbreak. 

“The diagnostic lab and the people in it are absolutely critical. They are part of the backbone of all of livestock’s management and response to diseases…and they have been taxed during the PED outbreak,” he said. 

The pork council welcomed an April 6 funding announcement from the provincial and federal governments for that reason, he added.

Manitoba’s Veterinary Diagnostic Services will be getting a $2.2 million boost to revamp the Animal Health Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), government said at that time. The system helps collect, analyze and report animal disease information to “provide valuable and timely diagnostic and surveillance data to stakeholders and clients,” Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson said.

He argued that the improvements would help improve decision making to limit the financial hit of animal disease, as well as prevent disease spread.

“The faster we get results turned around, the better,” Dahl agreed. “Yes, we need them. We need them badly. That being said, I also don’t want to be unreasonable and say that, ‘you need to make sure that the lab is staffed for peak capacity of handling three outbreaks at once,’ because then there’s going to be times when those resources aren’t being used. There is that need to get the balance.”

He would, however, like to sit down with the CVO after the PED outbreak subsides to “review what that ideal capacity should be.” 

Hiltz says their conversations with the CVO indicate the office is ready for avian influenza, in conjunction with the CFIA.

A spokesperson for Johnson noted that the province takes the lead in cases like PED (a provincially reportable disease), compared to a federally reportable disease like avian influenza, which would be spearheaded by the CFIA. In the case of an avian influenza outbreak, they said, Manitoba Agriculture and the CVO would be working in co-ordinated response with the national agency.

“Simultaneous disease outbreaks would put pressure on existing resources,” they acknowledged. “However, we are able to deploy our staff, prioritize disease response and ramp down work where there is low risk.”

The province has also added five health and welfare specialists to the CVO team, they said.

The spokesperson also cited strong relationships with relevant producer groups, such as the Manitoba Chicken Producers, Manitoba Egg Farmers and Manitoba Turkey Producers.

The province has, “proactively reached out to these groups to ensure communication on the current situation, to stress vigilance around biosecurity and to talk about communication should an outbreak occur. We have also brought the CFIA into the conversations,” they said.

Both the CFIA and provincial poultry groups are urging producers to review and tighten biosecurity and cut off possible contact between wild birds and their flocks.

Hiltz added that backyard flock owners should consider keeping birds inside.

The post Managing Manitoba’s growing animal disease watch list appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But for the first time, this year the sector is heading into the usual risk season with an epidemic outbreak already raging.

As of March 30, Manitoba’s office of the chief veterinary officer (CVO) had confirmed 88 cases of porcine epidemic diarrhea since late October last year. Recent cases push the 2021-22 outbreak ahead of similar surges in both 2019 (82 cases) and 2017 (80 cases), making it Manitoba’s largest PED outbreak to date.

Why it matters: The infamous neonatal disease is linked to 80 to 100 per cent losses of piglets in the first two weeks of life and comes with a serious financial and morale hit for any infected barn.

This year will be the first that the hog sector starts off the warmer months, the usual window for PED infection, with an active outbreak. Winter has typically offered a lull in new cases, even following the infamous caseloads in 2017 and 2019.

The timing of the outbreak in 2021 — which had seen no new cases until fall — threw things for a loop.

“We are very concerned about the spring and the time of year that we normally see PED arise,” the CVO’s Dr. Glen Duizer said. “We are collectively taking steps as much as we can to mitigate that, manure management probably being one of the biggest ones, but also managing (animal) movements and doing biosecure routing like we’ve done in the past. Doing all the things that we’ve done in previous responses to try and limit the outbreak as we go into the spring.”

• More on biosecurity: Poultry sector in the line of fire

It is not clear whether there will be any kind of cooling-down period on PED this year, Duizer said, although he stressed that he has no prediction on how the outbreak will trend over the coming weeks or months.

Changing gears

In January 2022, Duizer noted that a fall-winter outbreak shifted the emphasis on factors playing into disease spread. Animal movement, biosecurity breaches, exposure at high-traffic sites and area spread, among others, all still played a part, he noted. At the same time, cold weather had made for new challenges when it came to disinfecting contact points at those high-traffic sites. Proper on-farm biosecurity was also harder. Transport gaps exacerbated the issue.

“It’s been a challenging time of year with the pandemic, with winter conditions — a very severe winter with both cold weather and heavy snow that has challenged everything, but in particular transport and transport biosecurity,” he said. “Having enough trucks, enough drivers. Dealing with cleaning and disinfection of trucks in cold weather has been a challenge.”

Cases swelled in the first month and a half of 2022 before hitting an abrupt gap in mid-February. As of March 5, however, new infections had once again begun to pick up speed, leading to another 15 confirmed cases that month.

The CVO is still investigating how a number of current cases broke. In particular, there are several cases within the main hot zones in southeast Manitoba where it has been difficult to isolate the “smoking gun,” Duizer said.

Other cases have been linked to animal movement, either because animals were shipped before infection was apparent, or because of space constraints.

The industry will now also have to contend with the usual warm-season infection vectors.

Cam Dahl, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council, noted the shift in risk as the landscape thaws.

Spring field work brings dust management to the fore, he noted — windborne dust being a suspect in several infections over recent years. Likewise, he said, any mud tracked into a barn or yard becomes an issue, and even more so as farms empty their manure reservoirs onto the fields.

Like Duizer, he highlighted manure management.

“A sector committee of manure management specialists and applicators has reconvened to discuss spring options for manure application of both PED-positive and -negative farms, with the primary goal being risk mitigation,” Dahl said.

He added that the pork council is working with that group to report “higher-risk spread events this coming spring along with enhanced on-farm biosecurity protocols during manure application season.”

The council is urging producers to tighten up their biosecurity and to keep a watch on the weather when spreading manure this spring. Spreading is a job for a less windy day, it advises. Farms should also plan to keep barns tightly closed and avoid moving animals during local manure-spreading operation. Tighter protocols on barn entry and liming driveways are both also on the council’s checklist.

Silver lining

It’s not all bad, however, Duizer said.

Spring will ease the cold weather challenges the sector had been facing until this point, he said. At the same time, the timing of the outbreak means that more sites, and sow barns in particular, will be going into the peak PED season having already had an exposure.

“There will be a significant number of herds that will have a high level of immunity because they are coming off the high-risk period of the disease and they’re working their way through their elimination strategies,” he said.

Barns that had dodged infection so far, however, will “definitely” be at risk, he added.

“All the key on-farm preventive measures that we’ve seen previously, such as farm-level biosecurity, managing and limiting people coming onto the farm and handling things like transport and feed and all of that, taking the extra steps to prevent transmission that we’ve done in previous years, will all apply,” he said.

Work on a PED working group is also ongoing.

The industry announced the value-chain working group — which will include an analysis of PED management measures from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine — earlier this year. The Manitoba Pork Council expects the first recommendations to be released by late spring or early summer 2022.

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Cam Dahl, general manager with the Manitoba Pork Council, says the multi-stakeholder group is already meeting, and he expects recommendations to start flowing in by late spring or early summer this year.

“This isn’t something that’s going to be a long time,” he said, noting the need to get things in place, for example, there might be improvements needed around manure-spreading practices.

Why it matters: The infamous neonatal disease is linked to 80 to 100 per cent losses of piglets in the first two weeks of life and comes with a serious financial and morale hit for any infected barn.

The Manitoba Pork Council recently announced the value chain working group, in the hopes of honing industry practices to prevent PED spread.

Manitoba saw its third major outbreak of the viral disease starting in late 2021. As of Feb. 11 this year, 74 new cases had been reported during the 2021-22 outbreak. It was also the first time cases rose so sharply over the winter, with previous outbreaks peaking during the warmer seasons.

While the virus was first detected in the province in 2014, cases were sporadic until 2017, when Manitoba’s first major fight with PED racked up 80 cases. That record was broken in 2019, when 82 cases were reported. Between those years, the sector had enjoyed lulls, with relatively few new cases reported.

It’s a pattern that has not escaped industry experts. The apparent cycle has led to veterinarian speculation around waning immunity following outbreak years or herd turnover, although industry is still working to determine definitive causes.

It is the pork council’s hope that the working group will help break the pattern.

“The agreement is that we can’t keep doing this every two years,” Dahl said. “So what are those approaches that can be used and where are the holes in what we’re doing currently? What can we do, whether it’s communication, whether it’s improvements in bio­security around trucking, for example, or other service providers?… Are there additional alternative approaches that can be used to control the disease?”

Herd veterinarians, producers (both those who have experienced PED and those who have dodged the issue so far) and Manitoba’s office of the chief veterinary officer are among those making up the core working group.

“We have the view from the integrated operations, the view from independent operations, the view from the veterinarians,” Dahl said.

Other resources will be called to augment that core group, he noted. Part of that will include the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, which has been tapped to explore PED management in other regions and how those practices might apply to Manitoba.

Those recommendations are expected by the end of March.

The “billion-dollar” long-term solution would be an effective vaccine for naive herds, he noted, although he added that most options right now have been most effective in barns that have already been infected.

Dahl expects that the purposeful inclusion of so many viewpoints in the industry will help dissect potential practices and their effectiveness to the sector by large.

“One of the goals is to kind of have everybody take their hat off when they come to the table and look at what’s in the best interest of the industry and we’re really seeing that; we really are,” he said.

“Are there different ideas and different potential approaches out there? Absolutely. Are we going to talk about them? Yes. Is that going to be a barrier to the industry coming forward with a common position? No, I don’t think it is,” he added. “I think that that’s the real advantage of having an industry that’s already used to working together on issues.”

The working group is separate from the Manitoba High Traffic Facility Swine Disease Surveillance Project, which received provincial funding in late February, although Dahl noted that the group will be looking at results from that pro­ject. The project, which tests for PED at high-volume pork sites, will “allow more time to evaluate fully the mitigation efforts taken by the swine sector that have decreased the occurrence of PED,” a February newsletter from the Manitoba Pork Council said.

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