Since the end of April, 78 Manitoba swine sites have been infected by Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.

Dr Glen Duizer, told An Alberta Pork Telephone Town Hall last week, the predominant risk in the spread of the disease has been direct animal movement.

Dr Glen Duizer-Manitoba Agriculture

Of our 78 infected farms, 30 of them have been the result of direct animal movement.

It's important to recognize that in many cases this movement has to occur, be it because of limitations on space or normal movements associated from one premises to another in our predominantly multi-site production in Manitoba but, if there's opportunities to have an effective limitation on movements or delay movements such that they can limit the spread of the disease then it certainly would help dealing in an outbreak situation.

Other risk factors that we've encountered, we know that indirect contacts such as staff movements, equipment movements and so on can play a role in transferring the disease and, although we haven't been able to say 100 per cent for certain that some of those indirect contacts move disease from one farm to another, we would consider them in some of the cases to be the most likely reason that disease moved.

The other risk factor that we are exploring a little but further is geographic or area spread, possibly with weather components and components related to birds or rodents.

Geographic area spread, in a few cases, it seems to be the most likely cause of spread from one farm to another, whether that be by wind or by other means but I would stress that would certainly not the majority of our cases.

Dr Duizer says the good news is, for the most part, infected premises have remained contained to southeastern Manitoba.