Saskatoon – Post-weaning multi-systemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) is the focus of day one of the Focus on the Future conference held in Saskatoon March 27 & 28. Practical methods of identifying, and dealing with the disease and its impact on herd performance are the subject of the first day of the conference.

Lee Whittington, Manager of Information Services at the Centre notes, “We have assembled leading speakers on the disease and Circo virus, the main causative agent, to address the defenses available to pork producers in protecting their herds, identifying the problem in the barn since many pork producers will have not seen it yet, and some of the solutions available to deal with the problem including new vaccination programs.” Dr. Frank Marshall, a swine practitioner from Camrose, Alberta will lead off the program documenting what the disease is and where to look for it in the barn.

Dr. John Harding, Associate Professor at the Western College of veterinary medicine in Saskatoon and one of the speakers on the program comments on the disease “PCV2 certainly has some unique characteristics and outcomes that have not been fully understood from a scientific point of view. This only reemphasizes the importance of control and prevention strategies that focus on control of concurrent diseases in the herd and the use of PCV2 vaccines if available.”

Dr. Francois Joisel, our keynote international speaker and a researcher with Merial in France will be addressing the area of vaccine development and how this recent advancement in vaccine technology can be added to the pork producer’s defense strategy.

Dr. Harding reminds pork producers across Canada “Until further research and experience can help us to determine with some certainty what are the factors which cause this disease to devastate production in one herd and hardly impact performance in another herd we need to use all the tools available to us to limit any disease entry into the barn and minimize the impact of concurrent diseases that may already exist in the barn.”

Registration for the conference can be made by phone 306-373-9922, fax 306-955-2510, or email ken.Engele@usask.ca

Prairie Swine Centre Inc., located in Saskatoon, is a non-profit research corporation affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan, and is recognized globally for its contributions to practical, applied science in pork production in the disciplines of Nutrition, Engineering and Animal Behaviour.