Pork producers are encouraged to be mindful of biosecurity as the onset of winter weather approaches increasing the risk of disease transmission.As part of its October eNewsletter the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports.SHIC Executive Director Dr. Lisa Becton says this month's report highlights increased PRRS, PED and Influenza A activity.
Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:
For this month, PED activity increased and exceeded the historical expected levels for September.This really occurred in the wean-to-market sites and showed a moderate increase for the second consecutive month since July. For PRRS, there was also a moderate increase in the wean-to-harvest market component and this was detected in September.
In addition, there was increased influenza activity in both production phases of sow and boar and wean-to-harvest, with a significant spike in tissue-confirmed diagnosis. It is something that is noticed, especially when there's a lot of temperature variation from fall into winter, so things like minimizing temperature stress is important, especially with cool nights and warm days.
It's also important to understand that there are additional increased risks associated with manure management and application, so people really need to focus on following basic biosecurity steps to minimize disease introduction.
As always, it's very good to visit with veterinarians to see what are potential vaccine needs for growing pigs and even for the adults and ensure that the animals are protected accordingly. And then lastly, it is important to also be mindful for transportation biosecurity, because as we start to get into potentially freezing temperatures, we do know, again, the risk for disease survivability in frozen water does increase.
Dr. Becton says while some of these increases can be attributed to different seasonal conditions, we do know there is an increased risk of disease introduction in the wean-to-market categories and that is a concern producers should be mindful of. SHICs domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
Source : Farmscape.ca