Articles presented here do not represent the opinions or views of the Canadian Swine Health Board. These updates are simply intended to demonstrate the diversity of current information being reported about swine health around the world.

News Updates: Friday, May 17, 2013

African swine fever in the Russian Federation: Risk factors for Europe and beyond

African swine fever (ASF) is one of the most severe viral pig diseases. Some genotypes can cause up to 100 percent mortality in pigs and wild boar, such as the genotype II virus introduced into Georgia in 2007 (Chapman et al., 2011), which spread throughout the Caucasus (Beltran-Alcrudo et al., 2008) into the Islamic Republic of Iran (Rahimi et al., 2010), the Russian Federation (BeltranAlcrudo et al., 2009) and, in July 2012, into Ukraine (Dietze et al., 2012). Without the availability of effective vaccines or treatment, outbreaks of ASF have been historically controlled in some countries by stamping out and through the implementation of strict movement bans of swine and their products.
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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, Thailand, 2010-2011

Characterization of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) isolates from pigs in Thailand showed 30-aa discontinuous deletions in nonstructural protein 2, identical to sequences for highly pathogenic PRRSV. The novel virus is genetically related to PRRSV from China and may have spread to Thailand through illegal transport of infectious animals from bordering countries.
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Clostridium difficile in young farm animals and slaughter animals in Belgium

Faecal carriage of Clostridium difficile in healthy animals has been reported recently, especially in piglets and calves. However there is limited data about carriage in animals just prior to slaughter in Europe. The main objective of this study was to determine the presence of C. difficile in pigs and cattle at the slaughterhouse. C. difficile was isolated in 6.9% of the cattle at the slaughterhouse. None of the pig slaughter samples were positive for C. difficile after an enrichment time of 72 h. For complementary data, a short study was conducted in piglets and calves at farms. C. difficile was more prevalent in piglets (78.3%) than in calves (22.2%) on the farms.
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News Updates: Thursday, May 16, 2013

ASF in Belarus - 20,000 pigs culled

While authorities and heads of the pig farm Vostochni continue to deny the occurrence of an African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak at the beginning of May, farm workers are convinced that the company is hiding information from the media. "During a week we’ve destroyed pigs, while there was not a word in the media about the epidemic or whatever it is officially called. Only later, when half the village of Zemcuzna located nearby where many people work at the pig farm started to sound the alarm and contact the media, it was made public," said an employee.
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Oral immunization with f4 fimbriae and CpG formulated with carboxymethyl starch enhances f4-specific mucosal immune response and modulates Th1 and th2 cytokines in weaned pigs

Purpose. F4 fimbriae are a potential candidate for an oral subunit vaccine for prevention of post-weaning diarrhea in swine due to infection with F4-positive enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli. However, large quantities of F4 fimbriae are required to induce a specific antibody response.
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Methicillin-resistant staphylococci: implications for our food supply?

Food-borne intoxication, caused by heat-stable enterotoxins produced by Staphylococcus aureus, causes over 240,000 cases of food-borne illness in the United States annually. Other staphylococci commonly associated with animals may also produce these enterotoxins.
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News Updates: Wednesday, May 15, 2013

CEO: Half of Smithfield's U.S. pork will soon be off ractopamine

Smithfield Foods Inc, the world's largest pork producer, said on Tuesday it will soon raise half of its hogs on feed that does not contain the additive ractopamine, a lean muscle promoting drug that has been banned in China and Russia. Two Smithfield plants, which handle 43,000 hogs a day or about 10 percent of the U.S. industry, already are ractopamine-free, Chief Executive Larry Pope said at the BMO Capital Markets Farm to Market Conference in New York.
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Main risk factors for Salmonella infections in pigs in north-western Germany

Salmonellosis is one of the major zoonotic, food-borne diseases, among others, caused by pig derived food products. As infected pigs are one of the main sources of the introduction of the bacterium into the food chain, scientific research in the last years has focussed on identifying risk factors for infection as well as developing mitigation strategies on this level of production.
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Early Weaning Stress in Pigs Impairs Innate Mucosal Immune Responses to Enterotoxigenic E. coli Challenge and Exacerbates Intestinal Injury and Clinical Disease

These data demonstrate the early weaning stress can profoundly alter subsequent immune and physiology responses and clinical outcomes to subsequent infectious pathogen challenge. Given the link between early life stress and gastrointestinal diseases of animals and humans, a more fundamental understanding of the mechanisms by which early life stress impacts subsequent pathophysiologic intestinal responses has implications for the prevention and management of important GI disorders in humans and animals..
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News Updates: Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Hogs Don’t Have Health Insurance: The Myth of Antibiotic Use

Missouri pork producer Chris Chinn, who serves as a Face of Farming & Ranching for U.S. Farmers& Ranchers Alliance, shatters the myth that hogs are regularly fed antibiotics. In fact, the opposite is true on the family’s Clarence, MO, farm. "On our farm, it’s normal for us to have entire groups of pigs that never have had any antibiotics when they go to market. Yes, you read that correctly. I know this is not what you see on the Internet about how farmers use antibiotics. It seems everywhere you look, you can read or hear a very different story. I’m here to tell you this is a myth."
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Research Shows Biofiltration Effective in Removing Airborne Contaminants from Swine Barns

Research conducted by the Research and Development Institute for the Agri-Environment has shown biological filtration to be an effective option for removing various contaminants from the air of swine barns.
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Reduced neonatal mortality in Meishan piglets: a role for hepatic fatty acids?

The Meishan pig breed exhibits increased prolificacy and reduced neonatal mortality compared to commercial breeds, such as the Large White, prompting breeders to introduce the Meishan genotype into commercial herds.
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News Updates: Monday, May 13, 2013

Pork Producers Encouraged to Consider the Advantages of Group Sow Housing

A researcher with the Prairie Swine Centre is encouraging pork producers to focus on the advantages offered by group housing as they consider moving away the use of gestation stalls. In the wake of increasing public pressure to eliminate gestation stalls some of North America's largest pork processors have committed to moving to group housing systems and many retailers are now saying they want to source pork from stall free systems..
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Susceptibility towards enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli F4ac diarrhea is governed by the MUC13 gene in pigs

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) F4ac is a major determinant of diarrhea and mortality in neonatal and young pigs. Susceptibility to ETEC F4ac is governed by the intestinal receptor specific for the bacterium and is inherited as a monogenic dominant trait. To identify the receptor gene (F4acR), we first mapped the locus to a 7.8-cM region on pig chromosome 13 using a genome scan with 194 microsatellite markers.
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Concurrent highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus infection accelerates Haemophilus parasuis infection in conventional pigs

This study was aimed at determining the effect of highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (HP-PRRSV) on Haemophilus parasuis (HPS) in co-infection. A quantitative real-time PCR targeting infB gene, which is conserved among different HPS serotypes, was developed to improve the accuracy and speed of the detection of HPS.
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