Nearly 50 cases have been confirmed in Manitoba since the deadly disease was found to have returned to the province in early May.

Those sites are in addition to the 11 confirmed cases between February 14, 2014 and September 21, 2016, according to the Farm Journal’s Pork.

A voluntary PED testing programme has been put in place at sites that move or handle large numbers of pigs, including livestock assembly yards, federal and provincial abattoirs, truck-wash stations and livestock trailers. As of July 5, 18,936 samples have been submitted for PED testing from 20 ‘high-traffic sites’.

Transport of pigs between the US and Canada has been blamed for the surge in cases, which has been described as ‘unprecedented’.

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay has asked the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to examine its transportation protocols. CFIA discontinued a pilot truck washing protocol a year ago that was implemented after the initial 2014 outbreak, according to the Producer.

There are concerns the outbreaks could jeopardise the lucrative Canadian live pig export trade to the US, which has borne the brunt of the disease. A US outbreak that started in 2013 has killed an estimated eight million pigs and pushed up retail pork prices.

PEDv, which has also wreaked significant damage in other parts of the world, causes severe dehydration and diarrhea in pigs, and is generally fatal to young animals.

Imports protocol

NPA senior policy advisor Georgina Crayford urged anyone involved in importing pigs to ensure they follow the measures set out in NPA’s recently updated Import Protocol, which is compulsory under Red Tractor standards.

She said: “The continuing spread of this devastating disease highlights the need to be vigilant and to ensure we take all the necessary precautions when importing pigs.

“The situation in Canada also highlights the need to ensure biosecurity is up to scratch on farms and, of course, when transporting pigs.”

She also reminded members that this is the type of issue the Significant Diseases Charter was set up for.

AHDB has a web page that includes a number of Standard Operating Procedures, which outline best practice and methods of controlling PEDv.

The VMD has promised to support the industry in the transition and is urging ‘responsible use’ of zinc oxide during the phase-out period. It is planning to publish sales data to highlight progress.

Mr Burch, a past president of the Pig Veterinary Society, congratulated the European Commission’s on its ‘pragmatic’ decision which received 83% support in the final vote by the Standing Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products (CVMP) in June.

The committee voted to withdraw all marketing authorisations for veterinary medicines containing zinc oxide, giving member states a maximum of five years to do so. It will be up to the UK Government to decide whether to allow the maximum transition period in this country.

Mr Burch said: “I think five years is sufficient time for most pig farmers to improve their husbandry position to reduce post-weaning stress, so that the majority of farms can go through weaning without major problems.

“The alternative, an immediate ban, would have been disastrous. The Dutch have been managing weaning without the widespread use of Colistin and other antibiotics and some lessons can be learnt there.

“This is, however, one of the authorities’ concerns – that farmers will just resort to antibiotic use, at a time when we are trying to reduce it. There are new vaccines becoming available, which should reduce the incidence of diarrhoea and mortality for the more severe cases.”

Brexit opportunity

Brexit might provide opportunities for the UK to take its own decisions, he added. “This is an EU decision and if we are completely out of the EU then presumably, it will become a national registration,” he said.

“There may be fresh questions to answer, especially on the environmental aspects, but we have time to research what is the impact of manure application on soils. The data in the UK, provided so far, shows soils associated with pig farming to have deficits in zinc, so there is an opportunity to explore this further in the next five years to see if there really is a problem or not. Possibly, Defra or AHDB pork might consider this?”

Mr Burch questioned the decision-making process and the evidence-base that underpinned the ban. He suspects the process was ‘strongly influenced’ France and the Netherlands, which brought the initial referral against zinc oxide.

“Denmark also brought forward environmental data that could be considered of concern but the interpretation of the data was challenged by the International Zinc Association, as it did not take into account soil binding but this seemed to have been ignored,” Mr Burch said.

“Denmark cannot be considered a representative country as they produce 11 times more weaner pigs than the EU average. This did cause some concern over the final opinion of the CVMP. It highlighted further research work needed to be done across the EU to clarify the situation before a final decision could or should have been made but procedurally it was not permissible.”

The virus was confirmed in two wild boar by the country’s National Veterinary Research Institute (Reference Laboratory) on Tuesday (June 27), after samples were collected from a wild boar found dead last week.

The infected animals were found in Zlin, 300 km (186 miles) south-east of the capital Prague, State Veterinary Administration (SVS) spokesman Petr Vorlicek said. According to Reuters, a 10-km sanitary perimeter has been established including a farm with around 5,000 pigs that are being inspected. If the infection is detected, all the animals will be culled.

The Czech Republic becomes the latest country to be affected after the disease had been detected in recent years in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and, for the first time in October, Moldova.

Data from the OIE, the international animal health body, shows five cases have also been confirmed in Poland alone over the past 11 days, plus cases in Russia and Lithuania.

Spreading west

Earlier this year, in his column for Pig World, Russian journalist Vladislav Vorotnikov highlighted the scale of the ASF problem in the region and warned it is spreading west.

He said ASF-related losses in Ukraine amounted to an estimated £30.4m in 2016, including a big chunk attributed to lost exports.

“Moldova reported its first ASF outbreak on October 6 and Russian veterinary watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor has suggested ASF is moving west with an average speed of 100 – 150 km per year,” he wrote.

“So, this year, the virus may get close to Romania, central regions of Poland and we might even see it identified in Germany.”

Defra maintains that the risk of ASF introduction to the UK remains very low, that is ‘rare but could occur’.

NPA reaction 

NPA chief executive Zoe Davies said: “This is another concerning development in the spread of ASF in eastern Europe.

“Defra still maintains that the risk is low but we will continue to press to ensure our surveillance and defences against ASF are as robust as they can be. It is also vital that Defra fully understands the devastating impact any incursion of ASF into UK wild boar or domestic pigs will have, not just for animal health and welfare but also the crippling effect on our economy of losing our vital export trade.

“Wild boar, which have played a major part in spreading the disease in eastern Europe and this highlights once again the need to ensure we have robust control measures in place to prevent our wild boar populations spreading out of control.”

A decision to withdraw all marketing authorisations for veterinary medicines containing zinc oxide was voted through by the Standing Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products (CVMP) in Brussels on Monday.

Member States now have a maximum of five years to withdraw the marketing authorisations for these products, a Commission spokesperson said. It will be up to the UK Government to decide whether to allow the maximum transition period in this country, which, unless Brexit heralds a different approach, would mean a ban in 2022.

While the decision to ban the feed additive was inevitable, given the recommendation of the CVMP earlier this year, the five-year phase-out period represents a mixed result for the pig sector.

It falls well short of the 10-year transition period called for by NPA and other industry bodies, but it avoids the almost immediate withdrawal some parties were pushing for.

Brexit implications? 

NPA chief executive Zoe Davies said the UK pig sector would now lobby for the maximum five- year transition in the UK. Given the Veterinary Medicines Directorate’s (VMD) support for the UK industry position of 10 years ahead of this decision, the NPA is hopeful of Government backing on this.

But she said the NPA would also look into whether the decision to leave the EU has any implications for how the UK handles the decision.

“I want to explore whether we could apply to transfer the current EU licence to the UK, as five years will take us past the date we expect to leave the EU.

“If we were to consider going it alone, we would obviously need to look at the implications for trade with the EU. However, zinc was banned for environmental reasons and analysis indicates use of zinc in piglet diets has little implications for soil quality in the UK. I would also question whether UK soil will still be relevant in future EU-UK trading arrangements.”

On the CVMP vote, she added: “We knew this was coming but that doesn’t make the outcome and the process behind it any more palatable. We had hoped for longer as we believe the industry will need at least 10 years to adapt to life without this vital health tool.

“But it could have been a lot worse if the industry alliance we were part of had not made such a powerful argument for more time.

Antibiotic concerns

“So we must now use the transition period, if zinc does go in the UK,  to ensure, first and foremost, that the health and welfare of pigs are not compromised by the decision. We are concerned about the timing – losing zinc could put a major spanner in the works as the industry collectively seeks to reduce antibiotic usage on farms.

“It is encouraging that some farms are already starting to experiment with removing or reducing zinc levels from piglet diets but already we are seeing this can have unintended consequences.”

Zinc oxide is used widely across the EU to prevent and control post-weaning diarrhoea (PWD) and bowel oedema disease in young pigs. An estimated 70-90% of starter diets in the UK contain zinc oxide at therapeutic levels.

An NPA briefing on the potential ban showed application on soils in the UK remains well below limits set by Defra and is often mitigated by dilution when slurry from pigs treated with zinc oxide is mixed with slurry from untreated pigs.

To see Pig World’s analysis on the politics and evidence behind the zinc oxide saga, click here

Research by the Moredun Research Institute at Penicuik, near Edinburgh, concluded that the animals could be harbouring an antibiotic-resistant strain of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) on their snouts, which the researchers warned could spread to humans as wild boar roam around the countryside.

However, the research was carried out on wild boar in Portugal, so its implications for wild populations in this country, notably the Forest of Dean, remain unclear. The researchers checked 45 wild boar in Portugal for signs of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and found the MRSA strain CC398 in one of them.

The study, published in the journal ‘Science Of The Total Environment’, said it was ‘a concern when MRSA is inhabiting the skin and nose of wild animals and is characterised with resistance to various antimicrobial agents in clinical use’.

“The convergence between habitats can lead to contact between wild animals and humans and this can increase risks of bacterial transfer and promote risks to human health,” it said.

Call for restrictions

Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, has called for restrictions on the numbers of boar in woodlands.

“I’m not keen on introducing new animals,” he said. “They may be very nice to look at in the countryside, good for the tourist industry and hunting, but we have to look at what might happen should they be carrying organisms that we would rather not have.”

The National Pig Association (NPA) has long called for much greater efforts to curb out of control wild boar populations in the Forest of Dean in particular, where the March 2016 population estimate was 50% up on the 2015 figure.

However, the NPA’s concern is focused largely on the risk to local pig populations of serious and, in some cases, notifiable diseases potentially carried by wild boar. Wild boar have been implicated in the spread of African Swine Fever in Eastern Europe, for example.

Wild boar have also caused havoc among the general public, with reports around the Forest of Dean of animals wandering around town centres, wrecking bins and gardens and chasing dog walkers. Nearly 50 wild boar-related road traffic accidents were recorded in the area in less than a year.

MRSA risk

However, the MRSA risk is less clear in the UK, despite media reports, backed by the efforts of campaign groups to highlight the risk, suggesting it poses a risk to human health.

Humans can catch the strain from livestock and the bug is a major concern in parts of the EU, notably Denmark where it is widespread in pigs and has also been found in humans. It has been linked with the deaths of six people in Denmark.

Livestock-Associated MRSA CC398 has been found in the UK, including in packs of supermarket meat, but at much lower levels than in Denmark.

While humans can be affected the risk of spread between humans and animals is considered to be very low and, where infections do occur, they are generally mild. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has looked into the risk of food-borne spread, describing it as ‘very low’.

“Based on current evidence, there are no reported cases of LA-MRSA being contracted through ingestion of contaminated foodstuffs, in the UK,” the FSA said.

“In conclusion the risk to human health from the preparation, handling and/or consumption of LA-MRSA/MRSA contaminated foodstuffs in the UK is very low, especially when compared to other routes of transmission.”

The latest figures from AHDB Pork showed, cumulatively, in just over a year since the online database’s launch, data representing nearly 27 million pigs had been uploaded. This included 13m finishers, 13m weaners and approximately 370,000 breeding animals. By mid-June, data had been submitted for 1,957 sites by 439 users.

The data represented 67% of pigs slaughtered in 2015 and 70% of pigs slaughtered in 2016. Numbers will continue to rise as more submissions in the system are processed, while, from this autumn, entering the data will be compulsory under the Red Tractor pork scheme, which covers 90% of UK pig production.

The 70% figure has always been a target for the industry as this is the level the Veterinary Medicines Directorate said was needed to produce statistically robust estimates of industry-wide usage.

The data uploaded to eMB-Pigs has been used to estimate 2015 industry usage, a figure that will form the baseline for five year reduction targets currently being negotiated between Government and industry. The targets will be announced in October.

The study, funded by AHDB Pork and unveiled at the Pigs 2022 conference in Solihull this week, is based on the discovery of an organism able to target harmful bacteria and leave ‘good’ bacteria intact in pigs.

Professor Martha Clokie and her team at the University of Leicester isolated 20 bacteriophages – or bacterial viruses – that target 72 strains of potentially drug-resistant bacteria that can cause gut problems in pigs.

Prof Clokie, who presented the results in a video shown at the Pigs 2022 event, said the results indicated that phage therapy could be ‘completely transformative for human health’.

Scientists have been trying to develop phage treatments for more than a century but they have mostly proved to be unreliable. But Prof Clokie has found more precise ways of isolating phages and assessing their effectiveness.

The researchers believe the breakthrough could help drive a long term change in how people with drug-resistant infections are treated, as well as transforming the treatment of animals on farm.

Phages occur in nature and work by latching on to infections and killing them by injecting their own DNA. There are many phages, each of which is specific to different infectious bugs. They reproduce inside the infectious bug and these new phages go on to hunt other infections.

Salmonella bug 

Prof Clokie and her team have identified a range of disease-killing phages, including one that disables a salmonella bug that infects pigs. Her team has shown that it works in the lab and the scientists have also developed a powdered form of the phage which remains active. They plan to begin trails later this year.

If these trials yield positive results, other phage treatments could be developed for a range of animal diseases and, potentially, for humans, too.

“There are many infections that we just can’t treat with antibiotics because they have become resistant to them,” Prof Clokie told BBC News, which was one of the outlets to cover the story. “So using the phage therapy for specific diseases could change the way we treat infection. It could give us a whole new armoury.”

Dr Charlotte Evans, technical senior manager with AHDB Pork, said bacteriophages are found everywhere in the environment, in humans and animals, so can be regarded as a ‘natural’ defence.

She said: “There’s still a long way to go in terms of trials and licensing but we are very pleased this research, which was started two years ago, has already yielded such promising results.

“Bacteriophage treatment is about using increased volumes of something that is already present to target harmful bacteria. Research suggests they do not harm other organisms because the relevant receptor is not present.”

The next step is to determine whether bacteriophages could be applied via spray, injection or vaccination, or by adding to feed or water, she added.

Game-changer

The development was welcomed by the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA) alliance, which described the discovery as a potential ‘game-changer’.

RUMA secretary general John FitzGerald said: “The issue of antibiotic resistance is one shared by human and animal medicine, and a number of initiatives across medical and veterinary sciences are attempting to understand and reduce the spread of resistance genes in bacteria.

“Phage technology is in fact fairly old, but its development stalled because antibiotics were – until recently – very effective against a broad spectrum of bacteria.

“However, the build-up of resistance has created new opportunities for phage technology; a discovery such as this could be a real game-changer, not just helping the farming industry to steward antibiotics more effectively but potentially speeding up the development of human medical applications.”

Around 37% of the UK’s antibiotics are currently used for treating disease in farm animals but sales figures show usage is falling, with the pig sector expected to record large decreases for 2016 and 2017.

“Bringing back products derived from animals or plants from countries where infections are present could bring serious diseases or unwanted pests to Northern Ireland.

“Diseases such as foot-and-mouth cause serious economic impacts and can be brought into Northern Ireland via infected animal products particularly those containing meat or milk. Such diseases and pests can have a devastating effect on livestock, crops or the environment.

“Diseases such as foot-and-mouth would threaten our animal health status. Should a major disease like this enter Northern Ireland, trade and jobs will be at risk.

“Holidaymakers need to be aware that there are rules on what they can and cannot bring back with them from their trip. For example, it is illegal to bring meat or dairy products from outside the EU into Northern Ireland. People travelling through local ports or airports should therefore check the rules on food and plant imports before they leave home.”

“We wish to raise awareness of the importance of bio security to protect our industry and also avoid the potential for enforcement actions. However it is important to note that illegal products will be seized and destroyed and anyone caught carrying prohibited items risks prosecution and a fine.”

To keep illegal imports of animals, animal products and plant products, including fish, meat and vegetables out, DAERA maintains an inspection presence at all of Northern Ireland’s main ports and airports.

The announcement, following a review by the society’s Medicines Sub-committee, means that under PVS guidelines, fluoroquinolones, 3rd and 4th generation cephalosporins and colistin will retain Class 3 status. This means they are only used when no other options are available and when supported by laboratory sensitivity testing – or exceptionally when all other options have failed.

Class 1 antibiotics form the standard prescribing list within responsible use guidelines and Class 2 are used only when sensitivity tests or clinical experience proves standard antibiotics are not effective. In all treatment decisions, the health and welfare of the pigs must always take priority, PVS said.

Betalactams with betalactamase inhibitors (clavulanic acid) were previously in the highest priority Class 3 category. However, in light of the list defined by the EMA, which has been adopted by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the RUMA alliance, the PVS has reassessed the risk and moved them to Class 2 to align them with plain betalactams. This means they are still subject to voluntary restrictions, but their use would not necessarily be only as a last resort.

PVS president Mark White said, despite the ongoing review process and the potential to reclassify certain products, the Society’s underlying principles remain unchanged.

“The total amount of all antibiotics used on pig farms to treat and prevent disease should be minimised, and the types of antibiotics used in pigs should be considered in light of the implications for antibiotic resistance challenges in both pigs and man,” he said.

“We must also continue to be alert to the possibility of cross resistance, even in older antibiotics that have little or no use in humans. Risk must be acknowledged where it exists and overall reductions are still imperative.”

RUMA has welcomed the society’s announcement. Its secretary General John FitzGerald said: “Farmers and vets need boundaries within which to operate and clear objectives to meet, and we would urge all supply chains, from farmer to retailer, to align with the sector position on best practice use of antibiotics, as defined by each sector’s professional veterinary organisation.”