Ontario Animal Health Network (OAHN) Swine Network Quarterly Industry Report

Disease Surveillance Discussion

Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PEDV) / Porcine Deltacoronavirus (PDCoV)

There is a GOOD NEWS story to share in Q3 swine surveillance!  PED cases were down substantially in 2022 Q3. 

Jessica Fox, Manager at Swine Health Ontario reported the following cases in Q3:

There has been no additional cases in Q4 thus far.  The PED and PDCoV tracking map is available at the Swine Health Ontario website:  http://www.swinehealthontario.ca/Disease-Information/PED-PDCoV-Tracking-Map

African Swine Fever (ASF) Preparedness- Good News Stories

Dr. Christa Arsenault reported some good news stories that we wanted to share on ASF:

• CanSpotASF testing continues in Ontario as a risk-based early detection testing program where testing is completed at the Animal Health Lab (AHL) in Guelph. Samples continue to be tested on any case submitted to the AHL where ASF is NOT suspected as the cause of disease and where eligibility criteria is met. We are excited to announce that CanSpotASF is now launched in both federally and provincially licensed and inspected processing plants within Ontario!
• Vietnam is the only country to have a commercially licensed vaccine for ASF. There was a period where this vaccine license was pulled for an investigation into pig mortalities. The good news is that it was determined that the mortalities were associated with off-label use and the government is allowing the resumption of the vaccine with a target of 600,000 pigs to be vaccinated.
• The USDA announced on October 13th, that it will increase ASF surveillance in the Caribbean. The USDA has a surveillance program in place in Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico there is a plan to eliminate the feral pig population as well.

Laboratory Diagnostic Reports

Notable pathogens or disease syndromes detected, and apparent trends identified during 2022 Q3 are as follows:

• Outbreak of lameness in 4% of pigs following transport to a finisher barn where rickets was identified as the cause of disease. The rickets in this particular case was due to a phosphorus deficiency related to a feed formulation error that involved inappropriate phytase levels.
• Congenital / neonatal piglet tremors due to atypical porcine pestivirus. This is the first confirmed case identified at the AHL. Porcine astrovirus-3 was also detected in this submission, but the lesions were not consistent with Porcine astrovirus-3..
• Swine dysentery (Brachyspira hyodyseneteriae) was detected in 1 herd in which the organism was previously identified. Another pathogen that causes bloody diarrhea (Lawsonia intracellularis) was also detected in the group.

International Disease Surveillance Topics of Interest

Dr. Al Scorgie provided a summary on some interesting international disease topics of interest for the OAHN Swine network members:

Carlos Pijoan SDEC Symposium- Biosecurity and Biocontainment in finishing pigs

At the recent 2022 Leman Conference, there was a seminar on biosecurity and finishing pigs.  Part of the reason that the seminar was held was because there have been several improvements in biosecurity on the sow side such as air filtration, transport, personnel entry etc., the average incidence of new PRRS breaks in sow herds has not changed much, usually over 20%. Could finishing barns be contributing to breaks in sow herds?  Are there areas to improve biosecurity in finishing barns?

Dr. Montse Torremorell (UMN), shared that the diagnostic labs often start to see an increase in PRRS breaks in finishing barns in September that precedes sow breaks in October.

Dr. Paul Yeske (Swine Vet Center) presented a small study where he followed the PRRS breaks in a small number of sow herds and the downstream finishing.  Four of six PRRS breaks in the sow herds were linked to finisher sites.  Dr. Yeske also found that the majority of the finisher sites that broke with PRRSv had multiple breaks.

Dr. Derald Holtkamp (Iowa State), shared a study that followed 639 sites.  (The majority of the sites were wean-to-finish).  Of the 639 sites,

• 23% (149) were PRRS negative at weaning and at marketing.
• 39% (243) were PRRS positive at weaning and marketing.
• 38% were PRRS negative at weaning but PRRS positive at marketing.

Dr. Holtkamp presented another study using GloGerm to access biosecurity risks during loading.  This study looked at loading risks because when finishing pigs are infected with PEDv in the last 4 weeks before marketing there is a reduction in ADG and an economic cost of over $2/pig.  Some of the barns were set-up with conventional loading and other barns had staged loading.  In staged loading there are people bringing the pigs up to a “dirty” zone who moves the pigs up to the demarcation line between the transport and the barn.  The person in the “dirty” zone does not leave that zone.  The study showed that staged loading significantly decreased the risk of material from the trailer being brought back into the barn.  Not all barns can be set-up for staged loading, but it is something to consider.

Take Home Message:  Special attention must be paid to finishing barn biosecurity to prevent further disease spread and swine health issues.  Don’t forget the importance of finishing pig health!

Senecavirus A Transmission Via Soy

Dr. Scott Dee, Pipestone Applied Research, recently commented about a case of Senecavirus A (SVA) that he was consulted on. The case was in another country. The national herd of this country had been historically negative for SVA. A pork production company had imported 40,000 tonnes of soy from multiple countries. Some of these countries were endemically infected with SVA. The soy was fed to multiple farms and multiple farms were breaking with SVA. The company sampled the remaining soy and found SVA in the feed. The production company and the country’s veterinarians believe that the contaminated feed was the source of SVA that infected the pigs. This case is important for several reasons.

-Research has demonstrated that viruses such as SVA, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) or ASF can survive in certain feed ingredients, but this is an actual case.

-Since the country has been historically negative for SVA, and the feed tested positive for SVA it helped establish contaminated feed as the cause.  Fortunately, this was SVA and not       FMD. (Jennifer Shike, Pork, 2022-09-13)

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