Articles - Pig health

Clinical disease and outcome following PRRS infection has significant inherited components.

The abattoir is a useful endpoint to collect data on herd health status and a valuable tool for monitoring the effect of disease control measures.

PCV2 vaccination of the gilts prior to insemination with PCV2 spiked-semen showed a clear decrease of viral load in the gilts as well as a much lower viral excretion that were compatible with foetus protection.

Is the right strategy to get a farm stable, that is, control clinical signs reducing the economic impact of the disease; or should a farm adopt strategies to go “negative”? As for other questions in the epidemiological field, our answer is “it depends”.

The virus is highly resistant in the environment, showing also high resistance to chemical and thermal treatments.

Infection of pigs occurs at birth but maternal immunity suppresses viremic infection in growing pigs until immunity wanes around 10 weeks of age, when a hidden infection re-appears.

On the finisher sites, the farmer noticed that the growing pigs in all the farm sheds had become dull and lame.

Might be there is a little doubt nowadays on the beneficial clinical and economic effects of PCV2 vaccination in subclinical infections in piglets, but… which is the role that sows play in the whole picture?

One of the challenges when conducting a disease elimination project is to ensure that the pathogen has in deed been eliminated from the herd.

None of the employees on this farm had ever seen TGEv before, but were concerned that is what they were seeing.

This economic model was create to provide a decision support tool for farmers and veterinarians, who can enter their own data to calculate the severity of PMWS on their farm, the cost of disease and what could be the most cost-effective control measure.

One of the greatest long-term potentials for genomic selection is to identify specific genes or genomic regions with a significant impact on pig health and to aid selection for disease resistance and/or disease tolerance.

Ileitis can take different forms, and it is frequent that a subclinical and a more severe and clinical form coincide.

In general terms, immunization through vaccination is the easiest and safest way to stabilize a herd.

It is believed that TTSuVs themselves do not directly cause any disease but they could potentiate coinfecting pathogens and participate as triggering factors for diseases like PCVDs and PRDC.

PRRSV by itself may induce mild-to-severe respiratory disease but rarely results in mortality.

PCV2 may reach embryos/foetuses upon transplacental spread during viremia or upon insemination with contaminated semen.

Knowledge of the dynamics of infection within the herd will allow implementation of better control strategies in affected herds.

This particular case occurred in a multisite farrow to finish operation in South Western Ontario, Canada.

Resolving the basis of viral and host variation will require identification and characterization of key B- and T-cell epitopes conserved among diverse PRRSV, and of the molecular and structural details of key effector antibodies, T-cell antigen receptors, and MHC molecules that mediate broad, cross-protective immunity.

Although a commensal, M. hyorhinis may cause serious systemic disease through mechanisms that are not fully understood.

It has been shown that the efficacy of PCV2 vaccines was dramatically decreased in the context of husbandry deviations such as excess of cross-fostering, mingling at weaning or very large groups in nursery.

One month after the beginning of the outbreak of reproductive failure in sows, acute respiratory disorder and diarrhoea that was non-responsive to antibiotics started in weaned pigs aged 6-8 weeks...

Control of outbreaks on problem farms in Asia remains an attempt to raise herd immunity by use of live virus feedback material. However, the current outbreaks have shown only transient herd immunity with these programs.