Three cases does not make a PED trend says Ontario Pork vet

Thursday, July 23, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario’s pork industry is still moving in the right direction to contain porcine epidemic diarrhea virus despite a recent increase in confirmed cases this month.

So far this month there have been three confirmed cases all on farrow-to-finish operations – July 2 and July 14 both in Lambton and July 8 in Oxford.

In July 2014 there was only one confirmed case on a Perth farrow-to-finish operation. That was confirmed July 21, 2014.

The total number of confirmed cases in Ontario is 84 since the disease first appeared on a Middlesex County farrow-to-finish operation in January 2014. The PED virus doesn’t pose a risk to human health or food safety. It causes vomiting and diarrhea in pigs with older pigs being able to recover. The disease wipes out almost all nursing piglets.

Veterinarian Mike DeGroot, Ontario Pork’s biosecurity coordinator, says he doesn’t have all the details on how these three farms confirmed with the virus contracted PED. “Three is more than one, for sure. The goal probably would have been zero, especially through the summer months.”

Last year, there was one case in July but no cases for three months – August, September and October.

About this July’s three cases, DeGroot says “I don’t think it’s a trend right now at this time. It’s not a big number.”

DeGroot says no Ontario farms that he knows of have had the disease more than once. “There may be farms that have attempted elimination and found out it was still there after a failed attempt.”

More than 60 per cent of the farms with confirmed PED have eliminated the virus, he notes.

There are fewer cases from January to July this year (about 20) compared to January to July 2014 when there were around 60 with most of them occurring in January and February 2014, DeGroot says. The number of cases this winter compared to last winter was also way down.

The industry’s goal was to keep PED at a controllable level and DeGroot says that was achieved. “The goal moving forward would be hopefully no more new cases this summer and early fall and as we get into the colder weather to try and control it (PED virus) again.” BF