The first detection of pseudorabies in Brazil in more than 20 years has been reported on a smallholder farm.
The Swine Health Information Center's monthly global swine disease surveillance report, released as part of its February enewsletter, details the first report of Aujeszky's disease or pseudorabies virus in Brazil in 20 years.
The disease was detected in a smallholder farm in Rio Grande do Sul, the third largest pig production state.
Swine Health Information Center Associate Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder notes the United States went through a long pseudorabies eradication program of its own.
Clip-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:
We were eradicated from PRV in commercial pigs in 2004.However, pseudorabies continues to be maintained in the feral swine population in the U.S. and that has also served as a continuous risk for reintroduction into the domestic herd.
It's very difficult to eradicate diseases from feral or wild pigs and so we've been able to successfully maintain a negative pseudorabies status in the U.S. in our commercial pigs despite the continuation of PRV in feral pigs.
What we see in Brazil is a single isolated case.
The concern is, could it have gotten into the feral pig population?Again, that increases the difficulty by which the virus can be eradicated.
As of now with Brazil, they've seen a single isolated case and they've culled all the animals that were on that farm.
The thought at this point is that it was an isolated case and they won't continue to have issues.We will continue to monitor that and report anything that we see with regards to risk in our global monitoring report.
The Swine Health Information Center's February domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
Source : Farmscape.ca