Reading Time: 6 minutes The porcine epidemic diarrhea continues to spread while officials conduct a relentless, but exasperating, search for how the deadly virus is breaching biosecurity defences. Just two days before the fourth case was confirmed on March 15, officials outlined their exhaustive detective work to track down how the virus came to Alberta and how it is […] Read more
Hunt for deadly porcine virus thwarted at every turn
Officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to find out how porcine epidemic diarrhea arrived here
China’s pork imports seen doubling in 2019 on swine fever impact
Wuzhen, China | Reuters — China’s 2019 pork imports are set to double from last year to two million tonnes, a Rabobank analyst said on Thursday, as African swine fever hits production of the meat in the world’s top hog market. China has reported 113 outbreaks of the contagious disease since last August, though farmers […] Read more
Swine fever in China poses risks, rewards for Canadian pork
MarketsFarm — Sharp losses in China’s hog herd due to African swine fever (ASF) are underpinning the North American pork market and could create export opportunities for Canada — if this country manages to stay disease-free. ASF does not affect humans, but the highly viral disease is nearly 100 per cent fatal for hogs with […] Read more
Piles of pigs: Swine fever outbreaks go unreported in rural China
Baoding, China | Reuters — When pigs on the Xinda Husbandry breeding farm in northern China began dying in growing numbers in early January, it looked increasingly likely that the farm had been struck by the much feared African swine fever, an incurable disease that has spread rapidly across the country since last year. But […] Read more
Alberta confirms fourth PED outbreak
Alberta took another punch last week in its fight with porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), having confirmed the province’s fourth on-farm case of the disease. Officials with the provincial ag department and Alberta Pork haven’t said where the fourth case is located, nor how far it is from the three southern Alberta properties where outbreaks in […] Read more
U.S. seizes pork from China on swine fever concerns
Washington | Reuters — U.S. border agents have seized around one million pounds of pork from China, a spokesman for the agency said on Friday, over suspicions that it might contain African swine flu disease which has hit Chinese pork output. Federal agents have seized the supplies over the past week in New York. “The […] Read more
Canada to boost airport detector dog corps
With African swine fever top of mind, the federal government plans to more than double the total number of detector dog teams at Canada’s airports within five years. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, speaking in Montreal Thursday, announced new funding of up to $31 million over five years to add 24 Food, Plant, and Animal Detector […] Read more
U.S. to train more beagles to sniff out swine fever
Chicago | Reuters — The U.S. government will increase the number of dogs used to sniff out illegal pork products at airports and seaports in an effort to keep out a contagious hog disease that has spread across Asia and Europe, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday. The disease, African swine fever, can […] Read more
The mystery deepens as third case of PED found in Alberta
It’s not known how the devastating virus arrived or how it showed up in one isolated room on a second farm
Reading Time: 5 minutes Alberta hog producers are no closer to answers about how a devastating virus found its way into the province after a third case of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) was confirmed at the start of March. “There are several possibilities about how it’s spreading that involve transportation, and we’re still looking into that at this […] Read more
One Alberta PED case deemed ‘false positive’
The third of four reported on-farm outbreaks of porcine epidemic diarrhea in Alberta so far this year can now be marked as a negative. The provincial government and hog producer agency Alberta Pork on Monday announced the first of two cases reported Friday was in fact a “false positive.” Specifically, Alberta Pork said Monday, the […] Read more
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