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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
MANAGING THE HEALTH STATUS OF THE SOW
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on May 12, 2017
Infectious diseases continue to cause considerable challenges for swine health and welfare. At the population level, they contribute to reduced average output and increase in variability. As such, they have a negative impact on profitability and complicate pig flow at the farm and production system levels. Severe manifestations of infectious diseases undoubtedly have an effect on the people directly working with animals; an impact that is often not fully appreciated.
In a survey published in 2007 (1), the most commonly reported pathogens in sow herds were PRRSV, influenza virus, Clostridium type A, and Streptococcus suis. In production systems that reported pathogens of concern for sow herds, PRRSV ranked as number one, causing the most issues with productivity, followed by influenza, Clostridium type A, and Rotavirus (either alone or in combination with Escherichia coli). The ranking could have changed since then, if for no other reason than because of the emergence of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), which caused significant losses in naïve populations.
A clear differentiation between infection and disease is essential to reach the goals of control or elimination of a pathogen or clinical diseases from sow herds. Details on the natural history of the disease of interest are also required, but commonly not readily available. One example of a tool available for such cases is the use of mathematical simulation models; these models can help planning control or elimination strategies while taking into consideration between-animal biological variability and pathogen characteristics that are uncertain.