fbpx
Sign up now!
Don't show this again
Download the report!Continue to Site >
or wait 7 secs

Thank you for confirming your subscription!

(And remember, if ever you want to change your email preferences or unsubscribe, just click on the links at the bottom of any email.)

We’re glad you’re enjoying Pig Health Today.
Access is free but you’ll need to register to view more content.
Already registered? Sign In
Tap to download the app
X
Share
X

REPORTS

Collect articles and features into your own report to read later, print or share with others

Create a New Report

Favorites

Read Later

Create a new report

Report title (required) Brief description (optional)
CREATE
X
NEXT
PORK POULTRY
follow us


You must be logged in to edit your profile.

Favorites Read Later My Reports PHT Special Reports
Pig Health Today is equipped with some amazing (and free) tools for organizing and sharing content, as well as creating your own magazines and special reports. To access them, please register today.
Sponsored by Zoetis

Pig Health Today | Sponsored by Zoetis

.

Veterinarian sees changes to three high-risk swine diseases

Three diseases affecting finishing hogs — Senecavirus A (SVA), porcine sapelovirus and erysipelas — have undergone changes over the past year that warrant the pork industry’s attention, according to Aaron Lower, DVM, Carthage Veterinary Service.

“We’ve been sporadically identifying all three of these over the past year,” Lower said. “Generally, the economic impact has been minimal, but the risk is relatively high with all three.”

Lower incidence of SVA

SVA “looks like it is starting to decrease in incidence,” Lower said at the 2018 Carthage Veterinary Service Swine Conference. “This isn’t a large-impact disease, but it is very disruptive to you and your packer.”

SVA mimics foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and must be treated like a foreign animal disease until the government rules out FMD through diagnostic testing.

The disease appears to be a hot-weather virus because most of the outbreaks occur from July to November, Lower noted.

“My belief is these pigs show up with lesions when we put them under a lot of stress — heat stress and marketing stress,” he said. “This makes us wonder if the virus may be more widespread than we thought; it just takes a certain set of co-infections or stressors to show up as a clinical virus.”

Porcine sapelovirus emerges

Until he saw porcine sapelovirus, Lower said he didn’t believe the neurological virus existed. It is real, however, and on the increase, though still very low in incidence.

“The virus is found in both healthy and diseased animals,” Lower said. “Identification of the virus doesn’t mean you will have clinical signs. When it moves to clinical cases, you will see diarrhea, stillborns, mummies.”

The virus also can cause neurological damage including a complete loss of body movement.

“These pigs are 100% mortality once they start on this progression,” he added. “They don’t respond to treatment and all must be euthanized.

“Cases come on over a 3-week period and how long it stays is variable,” Lower said. “We’ve seen two or three cases and then it’s gone. We’ve heard other reports where in 1 to 1 ½ years they’ve continued to have issues with it.”

Lower recommends obtaining a diagnosis using one of the euthanized pigs.

“There’s a lot to learn on this virus,” Lower said. “So, if you see it in the flow, give us your observations on how it is spreading between sites, [its]consistency and if there are other drivers of it.”

Erysipelas reappears

Erysipelas cases have started increasing in number, he reported. “I usually get two to three calls a year on it in grow-finish or gilts. But it got to four cases a month in multiple flows [last] winter,” Lower explained.

“Because we don’t see much erysipelas, a lot of [pig] flows don’t vaccinate in grow-finish because they haven’t been able to justify it.”

The key to minimizing the impact of erysipelas and other finishing diseases is early identification followed by fast treatment.

“Make sure you’ve got it identified correctly and communicate with your team and packers with respect to the clinical descriptions and the problem,” Lower added.

 

 




Posted on February 4, 2019

tags: , , ,
RELATED NEWS
  • New approaches to influenza control look promising

    Influenza-A virus of swine (IAV-S) is a thorn in the side of US pork producers, and it’s a difficult thorn to remove. If the virus were more pathogenic, veterinarians and producers would probably talk about it more.

  • Resurgence of ‘old’ bacterial diseases in pigs: Why?

    Three bacterial diseases considered under control recently flared up creating new challenges in hog operations. The older diseases include Haemophilus parasuis (parasuis), Streptococcus suis (strep) and erysipelas.

  • Neurological disease in pigs linked to Sapelovirus

    An outbreak of a severe, atypical neurologic disease in 11-week-old pigs has been linked to a novel sapelovirus and may be the first case of its kind in the US, according to a recently published report.

  • Positive-pressure ventilation makes a comeback to reduce PRRS transmissions

    Producers looking for ways to reduce porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) find positive-pressure ventilation with some modifications works, especially in older building, according to Aaron Lower, DVM, Carthage Veterinary Clinic, Carthage, Iowa.




You must be logged in to edit your profile.

Google Translate is provided on this website as a reference tool. However, Poultry Health Today and its sponsor and affiliates do not guarantee in any way the accuracy of the translated content and are not responsible for any event resulting from the use of the translation provided by Google. By choosing a language other than English from the Google Translate menu, the user agrees to withhold all liability and/or damage that may occur to the user by depending on or using the translation by Google.