Federal lab tests still can’t rule piglet feed in or out as a possible source of the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) in Canada.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Monday announced its findings after testing an Ontario company’s hog feed pellets containing U.S.-origin blood plasma from PEDv-infected hogs as an ingredient. [Related story]
While CFIA tests in mid-February showed PEDv in the affected plasma ingredient alone was capable of sickening hogs, the agency said Monday its subsequent tests “could not demonstrate” that processed feed pellets made with the same plasma are capable of causing PED in hogs.
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CFIA in February ran a bioassay study on U.S.-origin porcine blood plasma used in feed pellets produced by Ontario feed miller Grand Valley Fortifiers. GVF had said last month that it began on Jan. 31 to suspect a possible link between its customers and the spread of the virus on certain southern Ontario hog farms.
GVF on Feb. 9 issued a voluntary recall for certain pelleted swine nursery feed products containing hog plasma. CFIA said Monday it has “followed up with farms that received the affected feed to confirm the voluntary withdrawal was effective.”
The agency said Monday it’s also worked “closely” with U.S. officials to confirm none of the affected plasma was shipped to other Canadian hog feed processors in Canada.
Also, CFIA said, its investigation has included sampling and testing of feed, plasma and other feed ingredients from “various Canadian and U.S. sources associated with farms in Canada on which PED has been detected.”
All test results on those samples were negative for PED, the agency said Monday.
“Lines of enquiry”
CFIA said it will now continue to analyze feed and feed ingredients, as well as epidemiological information gathered during the investigation, so as to verify that CFIA regulations and controls “continue to protect Canadian livestock.”
The agency also pledged Monday to examine “any new lines of enquiry related to feed that may emerge,” particularly from any ongoing testing in Canada and the U.S.
PEDv, which arrived in the U.S. last April, is estimated to have since killed between one million and four million U.S. hogs on over 3,800 farms across 26 states.
The virus arrived in January in Canada, where it’s since been confirmed on 24 hog farms in southern Ontario and one each in Manitoba, Quebec and Prince Edward Island. Ontario’s most recent case was confirmed Friday on a farrow-to-finish operation in Oxford County.
PEDv, which causes diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration in infected hogs, can kill up to 100 per cent of very young piglets infected with the disease; older hogs suffer the same symptoms but are more likely to recover.
The virus is not known to affect people or other animals, nor to pose any risk for the safety of pork. — AGCanada.com Network
