The Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus continues to spread
across the United States despite warnings to the industry to take extreme
biosecurity precautions.
The most recent report is 700 farms in 17 states have been
hit, sometimes killing all of the newborn pigs in the barn.That's up from about 400 farms in 14 states a month ago.
Iowa has been hardest hit with close to 200 farms reporting
PED virus.
Officials say it takes about 100 days for a herd that’s been
hit to regain health.
Officials are also saying that the main culprit in spreading
the virus is trucks that have not been thoroughly cleaned, washed, disinfected
and dried before visiting another farm to pick up more pigs.
Canadians have been warning farmers about the trucking issue
ever since the first case of PED was reported in April.
So far there have been no confirmed cases of PED in Canada,
although there have been a few false alarms that turned out to be similar
symptoms caused by other diseases.
