CFIA expands isolation area for plum pox virus

Monday, April 14, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has increased the plum pox virus regulated area’s size in Niagara Region after finding the disease on a tree inside the western edge of the existing area.

Lisa Murphy, agency spokesperson, says by email CFIA officials found a case of plum pox virus on June 27, 2013 about 900 metres inside the western edge of the regulated area. The area stretches from part of Hamilton to Niagara-on-the-Lake, including St. Catharines, Grimsby, and Lincoln, along with parts of Niagara Falls, Pelham and Thorold.

The case was detected during the annual CFIA survey conducted around the perimeter of the plum pox virus regulated area, she says.

The regulated area has been expanded by 800 metres “based on international standards to control the disease,” CFIA says in an April 8 notice on its website.

People can’t move potentially infested material, such as infected wood and nursery stock, outside the regulated area. The Niagara Region regulated area for plum pox virus is the only one left in Canada. The virus was first detected in Nova Scotia and Ontario in 2000 but it has since been eradicated from Nova Scotia.

Plum pox virus affects stone fruits – peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots and almonds. It is a serious threat to Canada’s tender fruit, fruit processing and nursery industries. But it is not a health and food safety risk, CFIA’s notice says.

CFIA is continuing its surveillance and monitoring for plum pox virus across Canada to prevent the disease’s spread. Murphy says as part of the survey, leaf samples are collected for testing from orchards and trees in residential areas that could be infected with the virus. BF