The executive director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians credits changes in the immune status of the U.S. swine herd and stepped up biosecurity for the reduction in losses resulting from PED.
Losses resulting from PED have fallen dramatically from one year ago.
Dr. Tom Burkgren, the executive director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, says, while there is still some circulation of the virus, not as many U.S. sow farms are going down with PED and in those have been affected mortality has been lower than a year ago.
Anecdotally we have a much different immune status of the national herd right now.
After last spring and winter we had a fairly large number of sows go through the infection and thus develop immunity to the virus and so it’s a much different immune picture this year than we had last year and then also I would like to think that the diligence that producers and veterinarians have been putting into biosecurity has paid off.
In a lot of instances systems have really altered and paid great attention to transportation schemes, movement of pigs, the biosecurity and biocontainment in a system, keeping people out and just being aware of everything coming onto the farm as an input needs to be thought of as a biosecurity risk.
Then I think the level of communication amongst producers and veterinarians is really unprecedented right now, both within the U.S. but as well as U.S. and Canadian veterinarians cooperating and communicating.
If there is a silver lining to that PED cloud, I think we have much better communication on PED as well as other disease control and those type of efforts.
Dr. Burkgren says his hat goes off to the veterinarians and producers who have sustained their levels of biosecurity.
