The Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council says the state of health of the Canadian swine herd overall remains very good.
The Canada-West Swine Health Intelligence Network has released its third quarter report for 2016.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council, says the current state of the Canadian and western Canadian swine herd with respect to health is overall very good.
The key infections that were noted in this quarter were Streptococcus suis infections, Influenza A Virus infections and Porcine Rotavirus. Strep suis infections are the most commonly diagnosed infections in the Canadian pork herd and world wide. It’s a common pathogen and really suffers from seasonal pressures. As we start seeing that weather change, the warm days, the cool nights, we do see more challenges with Strep Suis.
Influenza A virus is a common virus. As we move into the fall we start thinking about flu season in the human population and that of course translates to flu season in the pig population. Influenza is getting to be a more complicated disease every year and certainly we want to do everything we can to be prepared for it.
Finally Porcine Rotavirus is a common cause of piglet diarrhea. Rotavirus is increasingly become a more and more frustrating viral disease for us in the last five to ten years as the virus changes and we see more types of Rotavirus enter our farms. Again, something we really need to pay attention to and something I wish we had better tools to work with.
~ Dr. Egan Brockhoff, Canadian Pork Council
Dr. Brockhoff says at this time of year we expect this to happen but heading into the colder months its certainly its time to take a close look at what’s going on and get ready for it.
