A 400-sow farrow to finish operation has become the first hog operation in Alberta to contract Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.

The Office of the Provincial Chief Veterinarian, the operation's own veterinarian and representatives of Alberta Pork have been on site to work with the producer, assess the situation and have begun traceback efforts to determine the source of infection and identify any areas to which it might have spread.

Darcy Fitzgerald, the General Manager of Alberta Pork, said a lot of traceback has gone through already and results are coming back as negative.

Mr Fitzgerald said, "Right now I think everybody is really curious about where has that farm been, what kinds of testing have we done to make sure that it's all clean where they are.

"The bigger issue, and I think a lot of people fear this, will be whether market pigs show up some place from that system where they're going.

"Those are the things that we have to just work our way through. There's lots of options.

"Some of our best advice is coming from our veterinary community who have had experience in this and working with the farms.

"We'll try to work with that and see what we can do.

"Our biggest thing right now is containment, making sure it doesn't get anywhere else and keeping everybody, not just the ones that are nearby, but everybody in Alberta and western Canada in particular to be vigilant with biosecurity protocols and do the best they can."

Mr Fitzgerald said Alberta has had a lot of experience watching the US first, then eastern Canada and Manitoba deal with PED and hopefully the lesson's learned from them will help make Alberta's pork sector more responsive.

He said it's the first case in Alberta and, if all rally together and give support to this producer and eliminate the infection quickly, they will have done a good job and this producer is doing everything that is being asked to address the situation.