Farmscape for November 9, 2017

A Saskatoon based Veterinary Pathologist says, thanks to the modernization of the pork industry, the risk of a human contracting any disease from a pig is extremely low.
Zoonotic diseases are diseases that can be tracked between two different species and will be among the topics discussed next week as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2017 in Saskatoon.
Dr. Susan Detmer, a Veterinary Pathologist with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says, for the most part we think of diseases that can infect humans from animals but it also includes diseases that can go to animals from humans.

Clip-Dr. Susan Detmer-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:
The main disease that I research is Influenza A virus and that one is probably the most important one for zoonotic transmission because it does occur on a regular basis, primarily from humans to pigs.
The other two that I'm going to be talking about in my presentation next week will be Trichinellosis and MRSA.
In places where these are tracked more closely, like United States, less than 20 people get Trichinellosis per year.
That huge drop from over 400 in a year in the last 50 years has actually occurred because of the modernization of the pork industry and it's very rare for pork at this point to have that disease.
It's more common now that they're contracting this disease from wild animals, especially bear meat.
When that meat is undercooked, that's when they contract it.
As far as MRSA, you're actually more likely to get infected in a hospital with MRSA or children can get it in daycare situations.

Dr. Detmer says it's very unlikely for MRSA to occur between a pig and a person working on a farm and it's even less likely that they're going to bring it home or to the public and spread it around.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork