The Swine Health Information Center is encouraging pork producers to maintain their focus on biosecurity, even as warmer temperatures reduce disease pressure.
As part of its April eNewsletter the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports. This month's report shows a slight decrease in PED case positivity in the wean-to-market category while case positivity in adults and on sow farms has remained on an upward trend, continued increased Porcine deltacoronavirus case positivity and decreased PRRS case positivity in wean-to-market continuing a trend seen since last November. SHIC Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton says, even as the weather warms up, it's important to maintain biosecurity.
Quote-Dr. Lisa Becton-Swine Health Information Center:
During warm weather months we typically see downward trends for a lot of the diseases that we face because we can take advantage of both the sunlight and warm temperatures to have some degree of a step on the pathogens that we fight. However, that may not always be the case because the viruses we face don't always follow what's expected.
So, it's always important to ensure the basics. Make sure you have clean and sanitised rooms, trailers, vehicles, equipment that go in and out of the farm because it's still important to not have those viruses gain entry in the first place. It really is important when we assess any of these viruses to focus on any and all mitigations that create essentially a health barrier around your farm and keep your pigs happy. I equate to peeling an onion.
If you have various layers of biosecurity, such as different movement of pigs and not having animals that haven't been tested to be free of diseases before coming into your farm, it's important. Transportation security and biosecurity and cleanliness, cleaning farms, utilizing vaccine.
All of these different things can be used in layers to help protect your farm and keep them healthy.
Dr. Becton says it's always important to not let your guard down even during warm weather because the viruses can remain very active. The Swine Health Information Center's domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
Source : Farmscape.ca