The animal was slaughtered at a federally-licensed facility in Alberta.

The CFIA said tissue from the six-year-old cow tested positive for bovine tuberculosis at an Ottawa lab November 29th.

The Canadian Livestock Traceability System allowed the lab to trace the animal back to its origin in Saskatchewan. The herd from which the animal came has been placed under quarantine until further testing can be completed.

All areas of Canada have been considered officially bovine TB-free since 2006.

Two cows from Saskatchewan tested positive in 2022 after they were exported to an American feedlot.

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More than 190 herds have been infected across the U.S. since March, along with 13 dairy and poultry farm workers, according to federal data. No human cases were confirmed in California, and the virus remains a low risk to the general public.

Efforts to prevent the spread of the virus were being seen at state fairs around the U.S., including he use of fake cows for milking demonstrations, increased testing, quarantines and cancelations of events in some states, according to reports.

Meanwhile, the Philippines lifted its ban on importing domesticated and wild birds, including poultry products, from California and South Dakota, Manila’s farm ministry said on Aug. 31. The Philippines imposed the temporary ban on California in January and on South Dakota in November last year after confirmed outbreaks of H5N1 subtype of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, which has killed millions of infected birds and poultry.

In Canada, there have yet to be any confirmed cases of bird flu in dairy cattle with the last outbreak in a commercial poultry flock coming six months ago. However, cases in wild birds continue to be found. In it’s Sep. 4 report the World Organisation for Animal Health revealed cases of bird flu in wild birds in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario. Only one primary control zone for highly pathogenetic avian influenza (HPAI) remains active in Canada. That zone involves a premises in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, where the presence of HPAI was found in a backyard poultry flock on November 15, 2023.

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Francis Drouin, parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture and agri-food, said in a release that 29 projects under the nationwide African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program will receive funding.

Provincial projects include improving biosecurity measures, wild pig management activities, retrofits of existing abattoirs, regional preparation for the depopulation and disposal of healthy hogs, and sector analysis, engagement and education tools, said Drouin.

The Canadian Pork Council also received funding to develop an ASFMeter, a portable, low-cost tool for rapidly diagnosing ASF in the field, the organization said in a separate release.

In collaboration with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., the CPC said “this innovative program aims to revolutionize ASF detection by providing a convenient and effective solution for on-site testing.”

CPC chair René Roy said the AAFC-McMaster University collaboration “brings together expertise in research and technology, ensuring that the ASFMeter meets the rigorous standards required for rapid and accurate ASF detection.”

Roy said the funding underscores the importance of research and development in enhancing biosecurity measures within the swine industry, as well as the jointly proactive approach taken by industry and government to prepare for potential challenges and ensure the sustainability of Canadian pork production.

A detection of ASF in Canada would immediately stop exports of pork products and live pigs, which could significantly impact the pork industry. The Canadian pork industry exports roughly two-thirds of its pork production and millions of live hogs per year.

In 2023, pork exports were valued at $4.7 billion, excluding the 6.7 million live swine exported throughout the year.

ASF has not been found in Canada, but its global spread poses a significant risk to the health of the Canadian swine herd, pork industry and Canadian economy.

Since 2018, ASF has spread through parts of Asia and Europe, and was detected in the Caribbean in 2021.

The $23.4 million preparedness program was launched in 2022 to help Canada’s pork industry prepare for the possibility of an ASF infection here.

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Animal Health Canada brings together the agriculture industry and federal, provincial and territorial partners to provide input on a cohesive, functional and responsive farmed animal health and welfare system in Canada.

Much of the funding will be used to proactively manage disease risks and to ensure proper response if there are outbreaks. This includes wild pig control, better disease surveillance and industry protocol development.

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The report, “Protecting Against Animal Biosecurity Risks: The State of Canada’s Preparedness,” included seven recommendations to combat existing and future disease concerns.

Animal disease outbreaks can seriously damage the financial health of affected farms and, depending on the disease, can have implications for trade of livestock and animal products.

The committee’s interest follows continued avian influenza outbreaks across Canada. While cases have not reached 2022’s fever pitch in the U.S. and Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency counted 76 actively infected premises as of Dec. 14. Since late 2021, the disease had affected more than 10.9 million domestic birds as of that date.

In April, the committee adopted a motion to “undertake a study regarding the preparedness and safeguards in place.”

In May, witnesses reassured committee members on the state of Canada’s biosecurity preparedness. Experts on the industry cited “extensive efforts undertaken at the farm and industry-wide levels to prepare for … outbreaks,” the report reads.

That was not reason to relax. Producers and others involved in the livestock chain “nonetheless encouraged continued vigilance from the federal government” in the area of biosecurity preparedness, the report noted.

Recommendations

The committee concluded that Canada should improve its biosecurity preparedness by working closely with international partners, increasing funding for biosecurity technologies and conducting annual reviews of biosecurity protocols.

It also recommended that Canada’s ability to respond to outbreaks be bolstered by developing new vaccines through public-private partnerships, encouraging the standardization and harmonization of requirements for animal medications, and developing and maintaining vaccine banks.

Witnesses expressed concern over a shortage of qualified veterinarians in Canada, and called on the federal government “to increase immigration pathways for overseas veterinarians.”

A similar issue was brought forward at November’s meeting of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, in which local governments agreed that the organization should lobby the province to ease the way for foreign-trained veterinarians.

Other recommendations included a national awareness campaign on the importance of biosecurity preparedness, prioritizing protocol agreements with Canada’s trading partners, reviewing compensation policies in the case of necessary animal destruction and reviewing the requirements for disposal of risk materials.

The full report can be found on the standing committee’s government webpage.

– With files from Alexis Stockford

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“We don’t have a better test for humans either,” said one researcher, Shu-Hua Wang.

Wang is a professor of medicine at Ohio State University and director of research and implementation science with the Global One Health Initiative. She’s one of several scientists working on better, faster tests for TB in both humans and animals.

Controlling bovine TB has been a decades-long battle in Canada. This year, a confirmed case from a herd in Saskatchewan put the disease back in the headlines after a shipped heifer tested positive at a U.S. slaughter plant. The animal had left the Saskatchewan farm in fall 2022. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency was notified of confirmation in February.

An investigation found one infected Canadian herd. Thirty-two cases were identified. Contact, trace-in and trace-out herds were still being tested as of Nov. 10, the most recent update.

The procedure

When a bovine TB case is confirmed in Canada, all adult cattle that might have had contact with the sick animal must be tested. According to CFIA’s website, animals receive a blood test and a tuberculin skin test.

The skin test, invented around the turn of the 20th century, involves injecting fluid made from cultured TB bacteria under the animal’s skin. If, after 72 hours, the animal has swelling at the injection site, it has probably been exposed to tuberculosis.

If all animals test negative from both tests, the herd is released from quarantine. If any animal tests positive from either test, it is slaughtered and tissue samples are sent for DNA testing to confirm bovine tuberculosis.

If TB is found in the herd, all animals are “humanely depopulated,” CFIA materials say.

The next step is a CFIA investigation to track possible spread, which can take up to 14 weeks, according to the agency.

In an email exchange with a CFIA spokesperson this summer, Glacier FarmMedia was told that some testing connected with the Saskatchewan TB infections had been delayed to avoid stressing pregnant cows during calving season.

The tuberculin skin test requires handling the animals twice; once to inject, and once a few days later to check the test site.

Testing was delayed again because animals were out on pasture. The CFIA said the risk of transmission to other animals or people was low, reducing urgency.

Because some herds couldn’t be promptly tested, however, they had to remain quarantined for months, leaving ranchers in limbo.

False results

The standard tests are relatively inexpensive and rapid but, because they rely on detecting immune responses rather than bacteria, they can be inaccurate. Test-and-slaughter is currently standard practice due to those murky diagnostics, said Fred Quinn, head of the department of infectious diseases at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

They “slaughter them all … rather than try somehow to figure out if they’re actually infectious and transmitting,” he said.

“What would be ideal is if we actually had a test that would identify active disease,” he said later. “That’s what we’re all working on.”

Quinn also works with Wang on TB research.

Human health

Quinn and his colleagues aren’t tackling bovine TB at the behest of the agriculture industry.

At the turn of the 20th century, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States, as per the American Lung Association. Today, the disease is relatively rare in humans in North America.

Cases still pop up. In 2021, there were 1,829 active human TB cases in Canada, according to federal statistics. Worldwide, 10.6 million people fell ill with TB in 2022 and 1.3 million people died, according to the World Health Organization.

Quinn noted “massive amounts” of bovine TB in parts of South America, Africa and southeast Asia, but little testing.

Many of the human cases could have come from animals through contact or consumption of raw meat and unprocessed milk. It’s unknown how many global TB cases are animal-linked, but one study in Tunisia found that 70 per cent of human cases came from animals, Quinn said.

“One of the main reasons [why milk is pasteurized] is because of tuberculosis,” said Liliana Salvador. She is an assistant professor and infectious disease researcher at the University of Arizona’s School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences and another colleague of Quinn and Wang.

In a 2017 report, the WHO declared that its strategy to end TB by 2030 “must include zoonotic TB,” adding, “the human burden of disease cannot be reduced without improving standards of food safety and controlling bovine TB in the animal reservoir.”

Bovine TB also comes with another quirk affecting human health: it and the human strain have similar symptoms, but treatment used for human TB won’t work well on the bovine version, Salvador said.

It’s possible that an infected person wouldn’t be asked if they work with cattle or drink unpasteurized milk, Salvador added. If that person lives in a remote area, they may never return to the hospital.

“If, in some places, 70 per cent is bovine TB and it’s misdiagnosed, these people will never get better.”

Better tests?

One potential diagnostic method is derived from a urine test for HIV patients. Wang’s team collected urine from a potentially exposed herd of cattle at a slaughterhouse and found a high correlation between results from that test and the skin and blood tests.

Quinn also pointed to work on a serum-based test that would detect TB antigens only when the TB bacteria are reproducing. However, this can’t be done in the field. Samples must be sent to a lab and the test is expensive.

The team hopes to improve the technology, as both Quinn’s and Wang’s tests could identify active disease.

In 2017, scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said they’d made a breakthrough that could lead to a quick blood test for bovine TB, the CBC reported in April that year.

Researcher Harshini Mukundan, who worked for the laboratory at the time, told Glacier FarmMedia her team had been working on a blood-based diagnostic test for TB in humans. Since bovine and human TB produce similar biomarkers, they thought they might be able to apply the method to the bovine strain.

Early work was promising, Mukundan said, but after they published their report in 2017, little work was done on the project. The team was focused on human disease and didn’t have funding or bandwidth to pursue the bovine angle, she said.

Quinn admitted that funding is an issue and in wealthier countries, there’s little financial incentive to pursue better testing.

“In the U.S., Canada and the U.K. and Western Europe, [it’s] test and slaughter,” he said. “It’s good enough. But in the rest of the world, it’s not, and that’s where we have the problems.”

The threat of zoonotic TB is gaining more attention, and there’s hope that more funding will be given, Salvador said, indicating initiatives that bring together animal and human health sectors.

“I think that we are in a good path but I think it will still take a while.”

– Geralyn Wichers is an associate digital editor for Glacier FarmMedia.

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In a recent study, my colleagues and I showcased the potential of gene editing to protect chickens from the threat of avian influenza.

This disease is caused by an ever-evolving virus that gets around numerous biosecurity measures such as good hygiene, restricted bird movements, surveillance through appropriate testing or selective elimination of infected birds.

A gene editing breakthrough would stem the huge economic losses currently suffered as a result of bird flu outbreaks. It would also be a significant step in controlling a disease that, although rarely, has caused serious sickness and death in humans.

Outbreaks of bird flu around the world cost billions of dollars in losses. The United States Department of Agriculture reported that up to 50 million birds died from bird flu in 2022. Recently, the South African Poultry Association said more than seven million chickens were destroyed after outbreaks were detected in the first half of 2023.

Beyond the economic implications, bird flu outbreaks also pose a risk to human health.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, bird flu was considered a possible trigger for a devastating human pandemic. This prompted international surveillance led by the World Organisation for Animal Health, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

The fear is well-founded as the three flu pandemics of the 20th century – including the 1918 flu pandemic that claimed tens of millions of lives – originated from birds, as did the outbreak of concern in Hong Kong in the late 1990s.

Vaccination is a primary method for preventing bird flu outbreaks in chickens. However, the effectiveness of vaccines is limited because the bird flu virus rapidly evolves. This makes existing vaccines less effective over time.

Also, there are multiple strains of the bird flu virus, but a vaccine is effective against only one specific strain. It’s necessary to match a vaccine with the prevailing strain causing an outbreak. Using vaccines may also involve substantial costs and practical hurdles of distribution.

In contrast, gene editing could target a protein or proteins within chickens that are vital for all strains of bird flu, effectively stopping the virus in its tracks.

Gene editing refers to the process of making a precise change in a specific gene in an animal to introduce traits such as resistance to a particular disease, increased productivity or characteristics that enhance animal welfare.

It’s important not to confuse gene editing with genetic modification, which entails transferring a gene from one species to another. This distinction is necessary for regulatory purposes, especially as the older genetic modification technology has faced stringent regulations in many countries, hampering its development.

To produce the gene-edited chickens in our study, we used the powerful molecular scissors known as CRISPR/Cas9 to make a single gene edit. We targeted the ANP32A protein in chickens.

Compared to normal chickens hatched simultaneously, these gene-edited chickens reached maturity without any discernible adverse consequences on their health and wellbeing.

To test their resistance, we exposed the gene-edited chickens to a low dose of the bird flu virus. Remarkably, nine out of 10 of these birds displayed complete resistance, and no transmission occurred to other chickens.

Taking a more ambitious step, we inoculated the gene-edited chickens with a high, unnatural dose of the virus – 1,000 times the low dose. This time, five out of the 10 inoculated gene-edited chickens became infected.

We also found that the bird flu virus was capable of adapting to use the edited ANP32A protein, as well as two related proteins – ANP32B and ANP32E. But we demonstrated through experiments in cells that simultaneously editing all three proteins could completely suppress the virus.

Ongoing research aims to identify the specific combination of gene edits needed to create the next generation of gene-edited chickens, providing complete and permanent protection against bird flu.

Gene editing should be regarded as an essential tool for preventing and controlling deadly animal diseases.

Supportive government regulations will be required to promote the development of gene editing aimed at enhancing animal health and welfare.

The potential for disease-resistant animals to protect global food security and public health is a compelling reason to pursue this innovative path in biotechnology.

– Alewo Idoko-Akoh DVM, MSc, PhD is a research associate, School of Biochemistry, at the University of Bristol. This article first appeared in the Conversation, by Reuters.

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Practical application can be developed now that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has released its National Standards and National Framework for the Canadian ASF Compartment Program.

From here, the Canadian Pork Council can develop the Compartment Operator Program, which is designed to segment different hog production and flows within regions that have an ASF outbreak. If specific hog populations can be put into boxes and kept separate, the CFIA and industry hope to see less severe market lockdowns.

“These compartments are established prior to an outbreak and are intended to allow for the export of products even if they were to originate from within an infected zone,” says the CFIA news release announcing the release of the Standards and Framework.

After CFIA called for responses to the idea of compartmentalization, farmers and industry expressed broad support for the idea of a pre-planned response to any ASF outbreak.

However, many were alarmed by the suspicion that government was attempting to dump ASF response responsibility onto farmers and industry. Others were concerned that compartmentalization within regions would undermine attempts to get regionalization accepted by trading partners.

After receiving the responses, CFIA said the worries about downloading responsibilities or undermining regionalization were a “misunderstanding” of the plan’s intentions and that “the compartment program is not part of nor does it replace the regulatory actions that the CFIA may use in response to ASF. Rather, it is an additional tool that industry may decide to implement, which could support business continuity during an outbreak.”

With the Standards and Framework released, the ball is now in the Canadian Pork Council’s court, with farmers soon likely to see the practical steps they will need to take if they want to end up in a compartment.

ASF has never been found in Canada and is not known to pose any human health or food safety risk. It causes fever, internal bleeding and high death rates in infected hog herds, with some strains killing almost 100 per cent of infected pigs. The virus has no vaccines or treatments.

The virus began to spread outside Africa into central Asia in 2007, leading to major outbreaks in China’s domestic hog herd starting in 2018, and has since also reached several European countries via wild pigs.

— Ed White reports for the Winnipeg bureau of the Western Producer.

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Conservative MP John Barlow brought forward Bill C-275, “an Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms),” as a private members bill. It arrived before the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Sept. 28.

Barlow, the Conservatives’ shadow minister for agriculture, agri-food and food security, and MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, had also put forward the previous version, Bill C-205, in 2020. The new bill takes up roughly where it left off.

It states: “No person shall, without lawful authority or excuse, enter a building or other enclosed place in which animals are kept, or take in any animal or thing, knowing that or being reckless as to whether entering such a place or taking in the animal or thing could result in the exposure of the animals to a disease or toxic substance that is capable of affecting or contaminating them.”

It applies fines up to $250,000 or up to two years’ jail time for individuals, and fines up to $500,000 for organizations.

While not explicitly mentioned, Barlow indicated the bill is in reaction to actions of activists, such as those who snuck into a turkey farm in his riding — likely a reference to a 2019 incident in which a group of activists broke into a turkey barn on a Hutterite colony north of Fort Macleod.

Barlow told the committee the bill applies existing penalties in the Health of Animals Act to people who trespass on farms in ways that contravene biosecurity practices and increases penalties to groups who encourage these actions.

While a few provinces have similar laws, “I think it behooves us as the federal government to have a national program in place that will cover all provinces and territories because that is not happening now,” Barlow said.

He added that while trespassing laws might apply to these scenarios, they only applied small fines that would not be enough to deter groups who he said fundraise off protests.

“There has to be teeth to this,” he said.

Barlow said the act would not limit people’s rights to protest, or target whistleblowers who lived or worked on the farm.

“This bill does not limit an individual’s rights to peaceful protest on public property,” he said. “This bill also does not prevent whistleblowers from coming forward when they are witnesses to practices that jeopardize our food security, our food safety or the welfare of animals. Canadian farmers and ranchers have a moral and legal obligation to look after their animals.”

Barlow also argued that the bill would help protect the mental health of farm families who feel targeted and attacked by activists.

Bill C-275 incorporates some of the amendments made to C-205 but drops a previous amendment that dropped “without lawful authority or excuse.”

When questioned about this, he told the committee that stakeholders saw this as redundant, as the bill had already been carefully worded to protect whistleblowers.

That amendment had been made by NDP agriculture critic Alistair MacGregor, who argued that references to trespassing must be removed as trespassing laws are not federal jurisdiction.

“If you are a farmer or farm employee, if you are a transport driver or if you are a protester, if you violate the biosecurity protocols in place on a farm, this law applies equally to you. That’s the main essence of my putting it forward,” he said in a committee meeting in June 2021.

In a meeting Thursday, Barlow said that on Oct. 16, the Commons ag committee would consider the bill clause by clause before returning it to the Commons to be voted on.

— Geralyn Wichers is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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Witnesses at a meeting of the House of Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food last Wednesday presented recommendations for what the government could do to resolve issues of honeybee health decline and bee mortality.

The most recent risk assessment on the subject was done in 2013. It concluded there was a “high probability of introducing diseases and pests into Canada due to importation of honeybees from the continental United States.”

Several of the witnesses said they believe new regulations are needed.

Jeremy Olthof, past-president of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission (ABC), recommended the U.S./Canada border be reopened — specifically to northern California, where many package bees originate from.

He said the 2013 risk assessment was “based on confirmation bias, not fact” according to peer review.

ABC’s Ron Greidanus said in the meeting that the border measures are ineffective at keeping out pests such as varroa mite, as they could easily cross the border on their own.

It’s a “fallacy,” he said, to consider the border as “a wall or a force-field. It is a figment of human imagination; pests and pathogens do not see it.”

Current regulations allow queens to be imported from Hawaii and California, but not package bees. A 2022 report from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada lists only Australia, New Zealand and Chile as sources of package honeybee imports since 2017.

One of Greidanus’s suggestions for mitigating risks was for Canada to work jointly with the U.S. to develop a North American bee strategy.

The 2013 report identified four main threats: resistant American foulbrood, Amitraz-resistant varroa mite, small hive beetle, and Africanized honeybees.

Greidanus said that resistant American foulbrood and Amitraz-resistant varroa both exist in Canada already, while small hive beetle and Africanized honeybees both fail to establish and thrive in Canada’s climate.

B.C. apiculture specialist Paul Van Westendorp said he endorsed the idea of a new risk assessment. “A lot of things can change in 10 years,” he said.

He also said the 2013 assessment was not universally supported by the scientific community, meaning it may be time for an update.

— Jonah Grignon reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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