The associate director research with VIDO-InterVac says new strategies being developed to strengthen biosecurity are improving the cost effectiveness of efforts aimed at controlling Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
As part of a multiphase initiative being conducted on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc to automate the washing and disinfection of swine transport vehicles to reduce the risk of exposure of pigs to PEDv and other pathogens, scientists are examining physical methods for deactivating these organisms.
Dr. Volker Gerdts, the associate director research with VIDO-InterVac, says the key factor with PEDv is that the infective dose, the number of viral particles required to cause disease, is very low so it’s critical for the virus to be 100 percent deactivated.
Just a few viruses are enough to cause a huge problem and so now our job will be to ensure that the means that we’re using, whether it’s heat or certain disinfectants, that we in the lab demonstrate that the virus is completely destroyed by those.
The first phase is really to shown in the lab, and we have to use our high containment facility for that because this is a disease that is ranked as a disease of pathogen that requires a higher level of containment, so we’re using our level 3 facility here.
In the lab we are demonstrating first that certain temperatures or certain disinfectants are killing the virus.
In phase 2 we will actually build a truck and then mock the real live scenario by having manure on it and then do the same in the lab to confirm that the virus is completely inactivated.
Dr. Gerdts says producers are very aware of the need for good biosecurity, so far their efforts have proved very effective in containing the spread of the disease and these new approaches will improve the cost effectiveness of those efforts.
