50 The Business of Ontario Agriculture Better Farming | April 2024 Livestock SALMONELLA DUBLIN: A NEW CONCERN Awareness, surveillance, & biosecurity are key to controlling the spread. By Emily Croft Salmonella Dublin is an emerging disease in the Ontario dairy herd that risks high calf mortality and has the potential to be spread by healthy-appearing carriers. Current efforts to monitor the disease suggest that most herds remain unaffected, but industry awareness is important to reduce further spread. Surveillance, good biosecurity, and strong barn hygiene protocols can help manage the threat of Salmonella Dublin. An emerging disease Salmonella Dublin was first reported in Ontario in 2012 and in Saskatchewan and Alberta in 2016. As a pathogen that has been present in Canada for more than a decade, why is Salmonella Dublin considered an emerging disease and why is it a concern for Ontario dairy farmers? An emerging disease is defined by the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases as “an infectious disease that appears in a population for the first time, or that may have existed previously but is spreading to new areas or has rapidly increasing case numbers.” Dr. Murray Gillies, Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System coordinator and bovine veterinarian, says that it is suspected that movement of live animals brought the pathogen into Canada. “It is believed that it spread into Canada as it was spreading across the U.S. with the movement of animals,” says Gillies. “There are research groups interested in using molecular epidemiology and hopefully that will provide us with more answers on how Salmonella Dublin came into Canada.” Dr. Dave Renaud, an associate professor in veterinary epidemiology in the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph, says that the disease has different presentations across the country. “It’s a pretty new disease that’s emerging and spreading at a fairly high rate in Ontario,” says Renaud. “If you’re in Eastern Canada, the predominant symptom in dairy herds Calving pens are high-risk zones. Keep these areas clean to prevent transmission. Andrew Thomson/iStock/Getty Images Plus photo
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