The Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork credits Manitoba’s PED elimination plan and the diligence or pork producers and veterinarians in adhering to that plan for the containment of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in Manitoba.
Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, a viral gastrointestinal infection that affects pigs was first introduced into the United States in 2013 and in in Canada, specifically in Manitoba, in 2014.
Since then, numbers of cases in Manitoba have fluctuated, peaking in 2017 with 80 cases, 2019 with 82 cases and 2021-22 with over 120 cases, prompting the creation of the Manitoba PED elimination plan.
Janelle Hamblin, the Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork, says PED numbers have since been on the decline.
2023, 2024 and 2025 we’ve been back to single digit numbers since that large outbreak in 2022 when, throughout 22 and 23, is when we got to work in putting our heads together and building how we’re going to move forward with PED from that large scale outbreak. The cases numbers, for 2024 we had one case of PED confirmed late in the year and that was fully contained and did not spread. In 2025 to date we have two cases that were confirmed and one is through the elimination protocol and is presumptive negative.
The second one is currently working its way through elimination as well. And, I really think that that can be attributed to the enhanced biosecurity, the awareness and the changes that have been made on farm around biosecurity and surveillance to prevent that disease from coming on farm in the first place. I can’t speak highly enough of the work that veterinarians and producers and farm staff are doing every single day to practice those high levels of biosecurity and to keep disease out of the farm. Biosecurity doesn’t only pick and choose PED but you’re protecting your farm against a plethora of disease.
~ Janelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork
Hamblin notes, as a result, veterinarians have also been reporting regular or lower incidences of other diseases in the province.
