Blast Heating Shown Effective in Disinfecting Transport Vehicles

June 25, 2014 — 

The chair of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board says the use of blast heating in truck wash facilities is one of the ways western Canada's pork industry is beating back Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea. Thanks to a stepped up focus on biosecurity Saskatchewan swine farms have remained free of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea. [Source: Farmscape.ca]

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board chair Florian Possberg says one of the things we know about PED is that it's tough to kill with the typical disinfectants used in sanitation but the use of heat has proved to be quite effective and is one of the few ways to really assure you'll kill the virus.

Clip- Florian Possberg-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
Even though you follow a rather well thought out program to use disinfectants the disease is infectious at such low levels that often it'll escape normal cleaning. One of the things that appears to be quite effective is raising the temperature of the trailers and the area to at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit so what we're seeing in some of our truck washes is the installation of blast heating to really heat up the equipment in a short order of time to get to that 160 degree plus temperature which we know is quite effective in killing the virus.

Possberg says he's aware of facilities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta that are in the process of installing high temperature wash bays or have already done so, so by the time we get back into the colder weather we should have a number of these facilities capable of doing this high level sanitation.