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Foreign animal diseases a continuing threat to Canadian pork industry

International swine disease experts made a dramatic case for biosecurity in the Canadian pork industry at the Banff Pork Seminar, held January 22-25.

Their concerns were: a growing global reservoir of diseases, costly disease outbreaks in other countries and the threat of bioterrorism. The Seminar, attended by 750 pork producers, researchers, education specialists and agri-business representatives, is the leading educational event of the western Canadian pork industry.

The final session of the seminar, “Disease Disasters – Who will be Next,” provided an ominous snapshot of disease threats that hover over Canadian producers, and drove home the fact that on-farm biosecurity must be the centrepiece of any strategy to keep Canada free of foreign animal diseases, including Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) and Classical Swine Fever (CSF).

Producers must understand that these diseases operate on a global scale and Canada is not immune to the havoc they have caused in other parts of the world, said Dr. Armin Elbers, a veterinary epidemiologist with National Animal Health Service, The Netherlands. Human actions and the nature of viruses themselves are important factors in determining the emergence of new virus infections, he said. “RNA viruses can change rapidly and adapt to changing environmental conditions through mutations and genetic recombination and infect both human and livestock populations.”

Human activities such as deforestation, which drives wild animals into closer contact with livestock and humans, are a worrisome factor in the spread of disease throughout the world, Elbers said. “Global travelling of man and transport of livestock to places all over the world has provided optimal conditions for introduction of emerging diseases to the Western world.”

Part of surmounting the threat is learning from other disease outbreaks, such as the 2001 FMD calamity in the U.K. “FMD is considered to be the most contagious of all animal virus diseases and is the single most important constraint to international trade in live animals and animal products,” said Dr. Paul Kitching, Director of the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

One of the lessons learned from the outbreak is that feeding of waste food from restaurants, hospitals, schools, etc. (swill), which has been identified as the cause of the outbreak, is an outmoded and risky practice, said Kitching. The European Union subsequently banned the use of swill in pig feed throughout Europe.

Another important factor in the outbreak was the unrestricted mass movement of sheep to markets and to new farms. Since signs of FMD in sheep are hard to detect and easily confused with other diseases, the disease had spread rapidly before officials knew what was going on, he said. “It wasn’t until it started showing up in cattle that they realized the severity of the situation.”

Limited human, lab and supply resources availability was a major factor in the proliferation of the disease, as the outbreak soon outstripped the U.K.’s ability to appropriately handle the situation. “A number of problems arose during the course of the outbreak which would have been better addressed by contingency planning before the event,” said Kitching.

The total cost of the FMD outbreak will likely exceed $30 billion (Cdn) when the loss of tourism is factored in, he said. Kitching’s department, along with other federal and provincial government departments, as well as industry, is currently developing a comprehensive FMD control strategy for Canada.

Any disease control plan now must account for the real possibility of bioterrorism, said Dr. Larry Delver, Import/Export Veterinary Program, Animal Health and Production Division, Canadian Food Inspection Agency. For livestock producers, that means they must also guard against the calculated introduction of foreign animal diseases to their herds that could disrupt the industry and society.

“We are vulnerable to agriculture biological attack throughout the farm-to-table continuum,” he said. People with basic scientific knowledge could easily introduce FMD and other diseases into Canada.

To grow the pork industry and block costly diseases from entering Canadian swine herds, either unintentionally or by design, proper biosecurity and sanitation measures are paramount. “Producers are the first line of defence against animal diseases,” said Delver.

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