Canfield Fair officials took precautions against virus killing US piglets

CANFIELD

Despite the continued spread of a deadly pig disease across U.S. farms, Canfield Fair Board directors in charge of the Mahoning County Junior Fair say they’re not anticipating any outbreaks during the 168th Canfield Fair.

Ward Campbell, one such fair board director, said on Thursday that if there were issues with the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PEDv, at the fairgrounds, he would’ve heard about them by now.

His counterpart, Bob Jarvis, noted that from the moment he learned of PEDv, which has killed an estimated 8 million piglets since it was first identified in the U.S. last year, he ensured that precautions were taken to prevent its spreading to fair swine.

“We don’t want to have sick pigs here at the fair,” Jarvis said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, PEDv poses no risk to human health or to food safety. Most vulnerable to the disease are piglets, especially those that are less than 6 weeks old.

Between 50 to 100 percent of infected piglets die from the virus. Adult pigs can become infected by PEDv, but in those cases, the disease is generally not fatal.

Both Jarvis and Campbell compared an adult pig’s getting PEDv to an adult human’s getting the flu.

He said, too, that dealings with the fair swine were carefully monitored, as he and others “didn’t want to take any chances.”

Fair and state veterinarians were even called in for meetings over the past few months which included discussion of “what protocol to follow if there were to be a problem,” Campbell noted.

Read more about the virus and the fair's precautions in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.