Farmscape for May 1, 2017

Scientists with VIDO InterVac have confirmed the application of heat to swine transportation equipment is an important step in ensuring pathogens will be rendered incapable of transmitting disease.
As part of research being conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc Scientists with the University of Saskatchewan, the Prairie Swine Centre, the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute and VIDO-InterVac are working to automate the cleaning of swine transport vehicles to speed up the process and cut the cost.
VIDO-InterVac is responsible for identifying approaches to inactivate the key pathogens responsible for the transmission of disease.
Dr. Volker Gerdts, the Associate Director Research with VIDO-InterVac, says in this project scientists focused on temperatures and the amount of time at those temperatures needed to inactivate 12 pathogens, six bacteria and six viruses, considered important to the swine industry.

Clip-Dr. Volker Gerdts-VIDO-InterVac:
Viruses in general are a little bit more difficult to inactivate because they are inside the cell but we also had a few bacteria, Streptococcus suis for example, which is also relatively resistant to heat.
If you were able to use a very high temperature, like 80 degrees, all of these pathogens will be destroyed within a very short period of time.
Going lower, like at 60 or 65 degrees Celsius, then it would take much longer so it's really a combination of temperature and time.
I can't really give you all of those but, if you were to go with a high temperature, like 80 degrees for example, that would be sufficient to kill most pathogens within minutes.
If you were going to go with 70 or 65 degrees then you're probably looking more at 15 minutes or something like that.

Dr. Gerdts notes the industry is using this approach already.
He says after cleaning, washing and disinfecting, they're baking the trailers but the various units are using slightly different temperatures and slightly different schedules.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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