Research conducted by Ohio State University is helping improve the identification of Porcine sapovirus.Porcine sapovirus is an emerging virus that causes diarrhea and weight loss in pigs, predominantly at weaning or post weaning but it can affect pigs of all ages. Research conducted by Ohio State University in partnership with the Swine Health Information Center is looking at Porcine sapovirus as part of an effort to characterize and improve the identification and prevention of the infection. SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says there are eight genogroups that are identified for Porcine sapovirus, with genogroup three being the most prevalent.
Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:
It was important to be able to characterize and isolate contemporary Porcine sapovirus strains, especially utilizing cell culture, but also evaluate the antibody response in colostrum and milk of adults that had been immunized with a Porcine sapovirus vaccine.Lastly, it was also focused to correlate antibodies with piglet performance, such as weight gain.
There also was a need to be able to isolate the field strain and cell lines because this has been a challenge, especially when we wanted to look at different diagnostics and or vaccine development.There are autogenous vaccines that can be available and made for specific Porcine sapovirus infection.However, they are hindered by a lack of cell lines that can adequately grow the virus and do that consistently.
Other forms of control are looking at natural exposure, but there really isn't a treatment for the virus.A lot of the management of infection is symptomatic care and making sure to maintain adequate sanitation and biosecurity.This is really important because the goal is to establish a novel virus isolation platform or cell line and then lastly, being able to grow the virus also helps to aid in the development of diagnostic testing.
Details on the Ohio State University study can be accessed through the Swine Health Information Center's June eNewsletter at swinehealth.org.
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Source : Farmscape.ca