Since the end of April, 78 swine premises in Manitoba have been confirmed infected with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, including 25 sow herds, 16 nurseries and 37 finisher operations.

Dr Glen Duizer, with the Office of Manitoba's Chief Veterinary Officer, told those on hand yesterday for an Alberta Pork Telephone Town Hall the herds are located in 11 high risk buffer areas in which just over one million animals are under surveillance.

Dr Glen Duizer-Manitoba Agriculture

On the good news side, we've not had any new cases since early September.

We have 32 of our operations have moved to what we consider our transitional status, which means that they have been able to ensure that the pigs coming off their farms are negative for PED.

Additionally six of those 32 premises have moved on to become presumptive negative.

Five them of are nurseries and one of them is a finisher operation.

By presumptive negative we mean that not only are the pigs negative but all pig contact surfaces, offices, facilities around the premises are considered negative for PED.

We recognize that live PED virus may still be within the manure and manure storage and manure handling equipment on these premises but they have demonstrated through repeated testing and effective biocontainment and elimination that they've reached a stage where they are very low risk for PED.

Dr Duizer says the predominant risk factor for disease spread has been direct animal movement with direct animal movement attributed to 30 of the 78 cases.

He says movements must take place but if they can be minimized or delayed in a way that will limit the spread of disease it will help.