Pig farms are vulnerable to a host of nasty viruses, but in the case of porcine epidemic diarrhea, no immunity develops after the disease strikes.
Transmissible gastroenteritis, similar to PED, is found on many farms but it does not provide immunity to PED, said Egan Brockhoff of Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer.
“It is a devastating virus to young pigs and it will be a devastating virus to the pork industry and an individual pig farm,” he said in a teleconference Jan. 31.
Farms in the United States that had PED are now seeing recurring outbreaks.
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Fifteen to 20 percent of the U.S. pork industry has been affected, and more than 100 new cases were reported in recent weeks. About three million pigs have been affected.
“All reports indicate this virus will continue to spread, and it is not slowing down,” he said.
Infection of a naïve sow herd results in an acute outbreak of severe vomiting and diarrhea in most, if not all, pigs on the farm.
Mortality is variable, depending on age, but it often kills all the young pigs. The disease takes two to four days to incubate, but there are cases where young pigs were sick within 24 hours.
Grow-to-finish pigs can get the disease, but the symptoms are more subtle and mortalities are lower. Mature animals will start to develop immunity within three weeks, but they are still susceptible.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will issue emergency permits so veterinarians can import a vaccine from the U. S.
The vaccine does not provide full immunity, said Brockhoff.
“Vaccination certainly will not prevent infection of your herd with PED virus,” he said.
“A vaccine may help reduce the impact of the disease or may help minimize the risk of a herd becoming endemically infected.”
It has not been given to uninfected herds in the U.S.
There may be less viral shedding and infection among mature pigs after vaccination, but it will not protect young ones.
Suckling pigs from vaccinated sows will have no resistance, and mortality will be the same.
A vaccine is not a replacement for diligent biosecurity efforts, Brockhoff said.
A mild form of PED was first discovered in Europe in the 1970s, and it appeared in Asia in the early 1980s.
The disease evolved into a more virulent form once it established in Asia, and it arrived in the U.S. in May 2013.
The strain found in the U.S. and Ontario is the same as the virus circulating in China.
“It is more infectious and more dangerous than what we see in Europe,” he said.
