The Director of Health with Carthage Veterinary Service encourages pork producers to resample when observing new clinical signs of influenza to ensure they are aware of what strains are circulating. Influenza Management Strategies were discussed yesterday as part of a webinar hosted by the Swine Health Information Center and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.
Dr. Dyneah Classen, the Director of Health and a partner with Carthage Veterinary Service, says veterinarians with Carthage operate under the perception that a coughing pig is a sick pig.
Clip-Dr. Dyneah Classen-Carthage Veterinary Service:
We look at the influenza clinical signs briefly and then the management strategies which does include looking the prime induced protocols and then how we manage the autogenous vaccine isolates as well as influenza elimination if we do get an endemic influenza outbreak within a herd. We do associate swine influenza outbreaks with the fall and winter months.
Within the last couple of weeks, we've actually had quite few within the Carthage system, the sow farms and wean to finish farms and it overlaps what we consider being the cold and flu season with humans. For us, we historically see September where start to see those early outbreaks and then throughout the winter months into spring.
We do keep an extensive database on the sow herds of outbreaks and, over the last two years we've seen that. of those farms, 55 percent of those have had a new influenza outbreak and 11 percent of those are breaking out with two strains in the same flu season, so it is important that when you see new clinical signs to go in and resample and make sure that you're still isolating the same strains that you had previously or you may find that you have a new introduction.
Source : Farmscape