Articles - Pig health

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.

The role that wild birds can play in the spreading of this infection cannot be underrated.

Lameness is the second most common cause for the culling of sows.

The efficacy of PCV2 vaccines to control PCV2 associated diseases has been clearly demonstrated not only in piglets but also in sows. Moreover, it is also feasible to vaccinate sows and their offspring without hampering its growth during the rearing period.

The total cost of productivity losses to US producers is estimated at US$664 million annually but productivity losses are shifting from the growing pig herd to the sow herd.

There was a sudden increase in mortality in a site 2 farm with the loss of the "biggest piglets" in the group.No particular symptomatology was seen but every day some dead piglets were found.

The prevalence of pleurisy is surprisingly high among pigs at slaughter. A recent review of available data ranged from 12.5% in the UK, 26% in Spain, to 41% of individual pigs slaughtered in one Norwegian study.

Experimental Mhyo and PCV2 co-inoculations have resulted in somewhat divergent results.

A sudden death of animals, with no prior symptoms of disease, and clinical symptoms such as massive facial, ears and forechest oedema, as well as an increase of body temperature to 41.5ºC, were observed.

A cough outbreak appeared in 8-9 weeks old piglets. It apparently was a "normal" outbreak that could be solved with a few days of antibiotic but the pigs did not respond to the treatment.

PCV2 can be shed into semen by infected boars and research suggests that the virus can then be transmitted to gilts and sows by AI causing reproductive failure but there is no evidence that PCV2 in semen has effects on various characteristics of sperm cells.

This study demonstrates the added profitability that air filtration can give to sow farms located in highly dense swine regions. However, it is important to point out that these figures are long term averages and not necessarily predictors for individual herds.

More than half of the pig population is housed in only one region with a very high pig density and it is very likely that elimination would only be possible with the help of a mandatory national program supported by the EU.

The pen and farm charts indicated a rapid jump to 40 % mortality in several finisher sheds over one to 2 weeks.

Genomic changes can be associated with increased virulence or decreased immunogenicity.

Surveillance includes the gathering, recording and analysis of data as well as the dissemination of information to interested parties so that actions can be taken to control disease.

The desired result of the strategic management of replacement gilts at a company level is to minimize the economical losses potentially caused by PRRS.

The litter size of the recent and the last farrowing batches was significantly reduced, and the suckling pigs showed an obvious varying weight, condition and viability.

The PCV2 has been associated, in an ongoing way and throughout time, with more pathologies called, collectively, diseases associated with the PCV2 (PCVDs): PCV2 systemic disease, PCV2 lung disease, PCV2 enteric disease, PCV2 reproductive disease,PCV2 subclinical infection and porcine dermatitis and nephropaty syndrome.

Novelties about the excretion routes, the transmission routes, the risk factors, etc., and explanation about how the PCV2 becomes a pathogenic virus.

Among the numerous genetically distinct isolates that are identified in high pig density areas every year, only a few are able to be transmitted between herds and even less able to widely spread and dominate the entire region or system.

In a factory farm located in Mexico an increase in the mortality in the farrowing quarters was seen, and this coincides with temperature and relative humidity increases.

The nervous system symptomatology is characterized by some cases of meningitis and opistothonus, dizziness and serious deep depression in a great number of animals. The necropsy shows, in all the cases, a serious lung congestion and an enteritis with a variable seriousness with a more or less important involvement of the mesenteric lymph nodes.

The most effective way of avoiding the production losses associated with the PCV2 consists in avoiding the appearance of the viraemia by inducing a passive or an active immunity that minimizes the circulation of the virus in the farm.