Manitoba Pork reports the Manitoba Coordinated Disease Response initiative has been critical in helping keep pork producers keep up to date on the latest PED outbreak.

The Manitoba Coordinated Disease Response is a password protected on-line information sharing platform that allows Manitoba’s swine producers to share confidential disease information.

Jenelle Hamblin, the Manager of Swine Health Programs with Manitoba Pork, says the MCDR provides producers intelligence on where cases are and how close they are which allows for better risk planning and, while it has been a great benefit to those affected by PED, its not exclusive to those producers.

I think producers need to be aware of the risk in their area and MCDR can help with that. In these areas that PED hasn’t traditionally been seen working with their service providers to help reduce risk for disease transfer, disease spread is super important and maintaining those open communication channels, working with all sector stakeholders in order to best mitigate risk. I think everybody just needs to remain diligent with biosecurity efforts and communication efforts to make sure that everybody’s aware of what risks are posed in which areas.

Participation, we are happy to report, has increased both in the southeast and across the province in 2019 and just recently we did have an influx of cases across the province. Currently we’re sitting at 79 percent participation in the southeast. I’m happy to report that we’re currently over 70 percent participation across the province. We’ve come a long way since 2017 when the MCDR was created and introduced. We only hope that we continue to increase in our participation and anybody that is interested can reach out to us here at Manitoba Pork Council to sign on.

~ Jenelle Hamblin, Manitoba Pork

Hamblin says communication is key and this platform acts as a one stop shop for all current disease information so it is a valuable tool.