Tracking PED Source

Wednesday, 16 April 2014 at 17:45

Deadly pig virus was first detected in south-western Ontario in January.

GUELPH -- More is being learned about a deadly virus to pigs discovered in Ontario earlier this year.

Since the confirmation of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, (PED) in south-western Ontario in January, the infection has spread to over 40 farms province-wide, something Robert Friendship, Professor with the Department of Population Medicine the University of Guelph says came to Canada from contaminated feed in the U-S.

"It was linked to one particular product. There was one feed that was made with spray dried plasma product that came in from Iowa and incorporated into nursery feed," Friendship said.

A positive case earlier this year from a farm in Prince Edward Island wasn't linked with Ontario, but rather that farm had instead purchased a batch of feed from the same supplier in the U-S.

Later, the plasma and feed were tested and samples of both were found to test positive for PED.

Speaking at a meeting in Manitoba this week, Dr. Chris Byra, Manager of the Canadian Swine Health Intelligence Network said contaminated feed has been shown to be the most likely cause of the PED outbreak in Ontario.

January 22, 2014 was the first identified case of PED in Ontario, followed by a flurry of new cases in the weeks afterward.

While not causing any harm to humans, Friendship says PED is easily transmittable among swine populations and it's having a impact on the pork industry.

"This is a very contagious virus, and once the pig becomes sick it's shedding tremendous numbers of virus and very rapidly contaminating its environments and contaminating other pigs so that a whole farm can become rapidly infected."

Friendship says at first, the emergence of the PED virus was puzzling because of how it popped up in so many different regions across the country at roughly the same time.

Although the industry has moved closer to finding out where the virus originally came from, Friendship is worried those tasked with transporting pigs aren't catching on.

This week, Ontario Chief Veterinarian Greg Douglas asked pig transporters to better clean their vehicles to discourage the spread of the virus or risk having added regulations installed.

The number of U-S states reporting at least one confirmed case of PED stood at 27 last month, a number which included every state which shares a border with Ontario.