Der Podcast von und für Schweineprofis

“The antibodies generated by some old vaccine strains have their neutralising capability reduced by the new PPV”

Professor André Felipe Streck of the University of Caxias do Sul in Brazil gives his expert view of the key question: Are long-established PPV vaccines still effective when faced with new field strains of the virus? He also discusses whether years of vaccinating sow herds against reproductive failure due to the porcine parvovirus PPV have played any part in the mutation of the virus into newer forms. (Running time: 20 minutes)

“We have an evolutionary process with this virus… evolutionary hot-spots on the surface of the virus, located at points in contact with the host’s immune system”

In southern Brazil, Professor André Felipe Streck of the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Caxias do Sul leads us through the changing story of the porcine parvovirus PPV. Long considered a stable virus that could be controlled by vaccines developed four decades ago, its evolution into diverse forms has become evident since the year 2000. Newer strains display amino acid substitutions in the capsid or external protein layer of the virus which influence antigenicity. (Running time: 33 minutes)

“An important message for veterinarians and farmers is that the spread of ASF from farm to farm is possible with a very small dose of the virus”

Professor Grzegorz Wozniakowski is Head of the Department of Swine Diseases at the National Veterinary Research Institute in Puławy, Poland, and also Director of Poland’s National Reference Laboratory on African swine fever. In addition to sharing his expertise on the diagnostic methods available for ASF, he describes a Polish study published in 2020 which demonstrated a delay of up to five days after infection before the appearance of clinical signs and found that even an extremely low titre of the viral strain tested was enough to infect pigs.
(Running time: 34 minutes)

“Highly pathogenic African swine fever virus is present in all wild boar in Poland; there are no safe levels of wild boar density”

Poland’s first incidence of ASF was in wild boar in 2014 and since then it has recorded over 7,000 wild-boar cases of the disease as well as nearly 270 outbreaks in domestic pigs, notes Professor Grzegorz Wozniakowski, Director of the country’s National Reference Laboratory on African swine fever. He sets out Polish experiences over the past six years in dealing with the risk of very virulent strains of the ASF virus passing to farm pigs from forest swine. (Running time: 33 minutes)

“It is feasible to do it in a year, but we are going to be busy!”

In 2020, Boehringer Ingelheim has sponsored its latest annual European PRRS Research Awards which offer 25,000 Euros towards the funding of each of three research projects that are potentially of practical benefit in controlling PRRS. Hear the winners of the 2020 Awards describe the research they propose, given the time limit of completing the work in one year. A practitioner-led project in Denmark is to examine the impact of piglet weaning strategies on PRRSv in the nursery. An international team led from The Netherlands will use whole-genome sequencing to investigate genetic recombination in type-1 PRRS viruses. And, a study in Spain aims to measure how biosecurity measures against PRRS relate to the physical performance and profitability of commercial swine farms. Running time: 30 minutes

“Vaccinating animals decreases clinical signs and also the amount of viruses in the air, so it is a good mechanism to reduce airborne transmission”

While taking her doctorate in veterinary population medicine at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Carmen Alonso investigated the extent to which swine viruses were transmitted in the air from a farm suffering an outbreak. In this conversation she describes the influence of particle size on the airborne transmission of the viruses of PRRS, Influenza A and the porcine epidemic diarrhoea syndrome --- and explains how even large particles with a high viral load can be carried a long distance. (Running time: 34 minutes)

“A weak spot for PRRS control comes when you take boar semen or gilts from outside into a herd”

Better surveillance for PRRS at boar stations in Denmark has followed a breakdown at a PRRS-negative boar station which led to sharply reduced sow productivity at herds in the area, reports Professor Lars Erik Larsen of the University of Copenhagen. Investigators discovered that the break involved a recombinant form of the virus, combining strains from two vaccines used at a sow herd about 5 kilometres from the boar station. (Running time: 28 minutes)

“Extra biosecurity should begin outside the farm…our graphics for training emphasise not only the risks from contacts within the farm, but also from those that workers have on their way to work and from their families.”

We talk to international veterinary consultant and population medicine expert Dr. Carmen Alonso about her recommendations for the precautions that a swine farm should take, to shield its farm workers from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection responsible for Covid-19 disease in humans during the worldwide pandemic. Dr. Alonso reports good results from using visual aids to convey key messages to the people who work on the farm. (Running time: 32 minutes)

“When you go over 14 live births and the sow has 12-14 functional teats, you need split-suckling protocols”

Sow herds should consider split-suckling (also called shift- suckling) if litters contain more than 14 liveborn pigs in order to improve survival rates, according to Drs. Rutger Jansen, technical service manager for swine at Boehringer Ingelheim in The Netherlands and a specialist on colostrum management. Lower mortality and more marketable pigs will pay for the 5-10 minutes of extra work time per litter involved in split- suckling. Dr. Jansen discusses details of the technique and also occasions when baby pigs may need training to drink from a teat or even bottle-feeding with colostrum milked from their mother or from another sow in the herd.

“The basic input for the pig that is needed is an intake of 250 grams of colostrum, then the survival chances are more or less equal for all the pigs”

Bigger litters from modern prolific sows increase the challenge of making sure that every newborn pig consumes enough colostrum, we hear from Drs. Rutger Jansen. He's field technical service manager in The Netherlands for the Boehringer Ingelheim swine health portfolio and takes a special interest in colostrum management in sow herds. The first indicator of whether colostrum is being managed correctly is the herd's rate of pre-weaning deaths, he says, since over 75% of mortality in the first days of life relates to insufficient intake. Colostrum production from a typical sow may not meet the needs of more than 15-16 newborn pigs and competition in big litters creates uneven distribution because the larger piglets drink more than their share.

“Our recent work demonstrated the presence of the PCV-3 genome within mild-to moderate histological lesions of aborted fetuses. This supports that PCV-3 should be considered as a potential causative pathogen for reproductive failure"

Professor Segalés shares his recent experience investigating the relevance of PCV3, posing the question: What is the clinical and economic impact of this emerging virus in sows and growing piglets? During this conversation we will hear the latests information that will help you understand the current state of knowledge.

“So far, all vaccines in the market have shown great efficacy in reducing clinical signs associated to diseases caused by PCV-2, independently of the genotype present in the farm. Moreover, experimental data demonstrated the cross-protection of PCV-2a vaccines against the most widespread genotypes (PCV-2a, PCV-2b, and PCV-2d). Therefore, despite the significant number of genotypes described/proposed (PCV-2a to PCV-2i), it seems one single PCV-2 serotype would exist".

Joaquim Segalés is full professor at the UAB and researcher at the IRTA-CReSA animal health research institute. He has been working with swine diseases for the last 28 years and he has also been working with zoonotic coronaviruses since 2014. He is co-author of more than 350 peer-reviewed publications, most of them on pig diseases and specifically on porcine circovirus diseases. Professor Segalés will share his wealth of experience on the evolution of the PCV2 virus and what that means in terms of diagnosis, understanding the evolving epidemiology and the control using vaccines. How can we make the right decisions on the farm?

“African swine fever and classical swine fever are two completely different diseases in their epidemiology and the behaviour of the virus”

How does the African swine fever virus reach and infect domestic pigs? The most common routes are spelled out in this podcast featuring Dr. Klaus Depner, a virologist and ASF specialist who leads a working group on transboundary animal disease management at FLI, the German federal institute for animal health. The virus does not enter on infected droplets or airborne transmission, he says, most often it has been carried into the barn by people. The main way it invades a pig's body is through contaminated feed or water, although even then only a small proportion of the animals exposed become infected.

“We learned that it's a human-made disease so it's a matter of what people are doing and how they behave”

Virologist Dr. Klaus Depner in Germany tells us that preventing the entry of the African swine fever virus is fundamentally a matter of good farm biosecurity coupled with education of the general public so they are not transmitting the virus or carrying it in food or other materials. At the German federal institute for animal health FLI, Dr. Depner heads a working group on transboundary animal disease management. Controlling ASF within territories demands a long view, he says. African swine fever is a disease where you need lots of patience.