Positive PEDv Cases Running Five Percent Higher than Year Ago

Jun 27, 2022

The Swine Health Information Center reports the number of cases of PED in the U.S. are running about five percent higher than one year ago.

The Swine Health Information Center's Domestic Swine Disease Surveillance report for June shows the number of cases of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in the U.S. fell from April to May but overall, the number of cases through May has been atypically high.

SHIC Associate Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says, when you compare the first five months of 2022 to the same period in 2021, there's about a five percent increase in the number of positive cases.

Clip-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

We are seeing that overall, in the month of May the detection is down, so reduced cases from April.

However, PEDv overall is still above the expected range for the entire U.S. and we're seeing regional increases in specific states, including North Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota.
We have not identified the specific reason.

Some of the thought process is that the labor shortage could contribute to the sharing of personnel across sites which may be contributing to the spread of PEDv.

We also think that, because the virus has been able to get into those sow farms and then continue this cycle of the virus being available in the sow farms and then the weaned pigs and then the nursery and the finisher, it has contributed to this cycle of making it difficult to eliminate the virus in the flows.So, continued vigilance on these biosecurity principles will continue to be very important.

Dr. Niederwerder the good news is there have been successful eradication efforts in breeding herds so we know eradication at the site level can occur and we anticipate PEDv will continue go down during the warmer summer months.

Source : Farmscape.ca

Video: 2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science: "Using science to assess and improve the welfare of dairy cattle"

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dan did his BSc and MSc at McGill and Doctorate at Oxford before co-founding UBC’s Animal Welfare Program where he now co-directs this active research group. His research focuses on understanding the perspectives of animals and applying these insights to develop methods of assessing animal welfare and improving the lives of animals. His work has helped drive changes in practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations for calves and pain management for disbudding) and housing methods (including the adoption of social housing for pre-weaned calves). He also studies cow comfort and lameness, social interactions among cows, and interactions between cows, human handlers and technologies like automated millking systems that are increasingly used on farms. His presentation will outline key questions in cattle welfare, highlight recent UBC research addressing them, and showcase innovative methods for improving the lives of cattle and their caretakers.