‘Everybody is worried’ about pig virus as pork conference wraps up in Banff

BANFF Alberta’s first case of a contagious viral disease that has killed millions of pigs in the United States is casting a shadow over an international pork conference in Banff this week.

“Everybody is worried about it,” said Brent Moen, chair of Edmonton-based Western Hog Exchange and one of approximately 720 delegates from around the world attending the Banff Pork Seminar, an annual event organized by the University of Alberta that runs through Thursday at the Fairmont Banff Springs.

“One case in Alberta today, if it’s left unchecked and we don’t get control of it, it could really spread extremely fast and financially cripple the industry.”

A provincial laboratory test confirmed the presence of porcine epidemic diarrhea, or PED, at a 400-head hog operation in Alberta on Monday. Though the location of the farm has not been disclosed, sources confirmed Wednesday it is somewhere in central Alberta.

Although this is the first reported case of PED in Alberta, the disease has long struck fear into western Canadian pork producers. The virus — which kills up to 100 per cent of nursing piglets that catch it, though older animals can recover — began sweeping the United States in 2013, with 200 to 300 cases per week reported between 2013 and 2014. It killed so many animals, it drove up the price of pork and bacon.

Dr. Egan Brockhoff, a veterinarian with Red Deer-based Prairie Swine Health Services and a speaker at the Banff conference, said he could feel the “anxiety ramp up” after the news of the PED discovery began to spread. While PED has no implications for human health, food safety or market access, its high communicability and mortality rate among piglets make it financially and emotionally devastating for producers.

“For the people that are in the room that are farmers, they ’re terrified that they’re going to track it home to their farm,” Brockhoff said. “For people whose whole living is to drive pigs, to haul pigs, they’re terrified they’re going to be the ones to get it on their truck and move it. For the people here that sell feed to the farmers, they ’re terrified the virus is going to get into their feed mills.”

The first Canadian cases appeared in Ontario in 2014. Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Quebec have also had cases. P.E.I. and Quebec managed to get control of the disease, while Manitoba saw it spread significantly in 2017, reporting 80 infected premises that year.

However, Darcy Fitzgerald, executive director of Alberta Pork, said Alberta has a better chance of containing the virus since its hog farms are spread farther apart than in Manitoba, where the industry is denser.

“We also have a lot of experience looking at this,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve watched the U.S. when they went through this in 2013 and then we learned a lot from Eastern Canada’s experiences starting in 2014.”

Key to the containment is biosecurity, since the virus is typically spread through fecal-oral transmission and can be moved place to place by contaminated manure on transport trucks or even the sole of a shoe. An investigation is underway to determine how PED arrived in Alberta but, in the meantime, all producers are being cautioned to be doubly careful with truck washing and with biosecurity procedures on their farm.

As for the affected farm, pigs are being contained on-site and Fitzgerald said many of the piglets that have been infected are being euthanized to minimize their suffering.

Dan Majeau, who has been raising hogs since 1992 on his family farm northwest of Edmonton and also serves as chair of Alberta Pork, said the situation will be incredibly difficult for the family that operates the infected farm. They will struggle not only with the financial difficulties of losing at least part of their herd, but also with the emotional strain.

“As farmers, we raise animals, we care for them, so anytime they’re under threat or you lose an animal, you personally feel it,” Majeau said.

“It’s the hardest thing to go through.”