Farmscape for January 24, 2014

The Ontario Swine Heath Advisory Board is confident the Canadian pork industry will be able to contain Canada's first outbreak of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
A farrow to finish farm in Middlesex County, Ontario has been the first in Canada to be confirmed infected by Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
The first clinical signs were identified Tuesday, samples were collected and submitted to animal health laboratories Wednesday and they confirmed a positive test late Wednesday night.
Dr. Martin Misener, a veterinarian with Southwest Ontario Veterinary Services and the chair of the Ontario Swine Heath Advisory Board Science and Technology Committee, says the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food is leading the initial response with trace back and trace forward information coming out of the farm and sampling of potential contact sites is underway with results expected by tomorrow.

Clip-Dr. Martin Misener-Ontario Swine Heath Advisory Board:
The good news is that this farm is now locked down.
It is a 500 sow farrow to finish facility located in a mild to moderate pig density area in south-western Ontario, In Middlesex County to be exact.
There will be no pig movement from that site until there is a whole lot more information understood and a plan to contain this particular viral exposure.
The main concern would be shedding pigs or cross contamination traffic with this farm so initial efforts are going to be focussed on the pigs that left the farm on the Tuesday.
I'm very hopeful that those animals that left the farm had not seen this virus yet and therefore are not shedding and therefore not infective but we need to identify that that's the case or not the case and that's the prime focus at this moment in time.

Dr. Misener suggests, if we are going to achieve our goal of containment and elimination it will take a concerted national effort led by industry and funded by government.
He says we can be extremely optimistic that we can contain, eliminate and reduce the impact of this disease on our industry.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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