The Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork says the success of efforts to control Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in Manitoba is drawing international attention.
Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, a viral gastrointestinal infection that affects all types of pigs with the most devastating impact on newly born piglets, was first introduced into the United States in 2013 and in Canada, specifically in Manitoba, in 2014.
Jenelle Hamblin, the Director of Swine Health with Manitoba Pork, says, since the introduction of Manitoba’s PED elimination plan in the spring of 2023, numbers of cases have declined.
We have seen three large scale outbreaks of PED in Manitoba but, as I mentioned, our first cases were back in 2014. We did see cases through 14, 15 and 16 however they were numbers less than 10, total across those three years. In 2017 is when we saw our largest outbreak to date at that point, 80 cases overall. Year over year we did see ups and downs, a roller coaster as I like to call it, through 2018 and then another large outbreak in 2019 with 82 cases, a quieter year in 2020. Of course, the pandemic was at play there and there wasn’t a lot of people moving at that point. You don’t move people; you don’t move disease.
Then in 21, 22, that was our largest outbreak of PED that we’ve seen to date totaling over 120 cases in that time frame. Since then, I’m happy to report that PED cases have been on the decline. 2023, 2024 and 2025 we’ve been back to single digit numbers of PED since that large outbreak in 2022 when throughout 22-23 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.
~ Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork
Hamblin says we have seen a quieter year on the health front generally in Manitoba and veterinarians have been reporting regular or lower incidences of other diseases. She notes that there has been a lot of outreach from other jurisdictions on what’s being done in Manitoba related to PED, particularly from the United States.
