Meet the Expert

“Sow farms that were virus positive when we started the programme are doing a lot better now...also, we have less airway disease in the growers and finisher pigs regarding problems that are secondary to PRRS”

Hear from Danish swine veterinarian Dr. Kristian Havn how 40 farms in an area of western Denmark have been taking part in an area PRRS control programme over the past two years. Dr. Havn devised the programme after attending a training course where details were presented of area-level eradication of PRRS virus on a smaller scale in Iowa. One lesson had been the value of encouraging the area’s swine farm operators to work together as a team. The farms in Denmark occupied a pig-dense part of the country with a history of PRRS problems and they varied in size up to 1,450 sows. To update everyone on progress, large maps were created on which colour coding showed when a farm was finally cleared of the virus.

“When you go over 14 live births and the sow has 12-14 functional teats, you need split-suckling protocols”

Sow herds should consider split-suckling (also called shift- suckling) if litters contain more than 14 liveborn pigs in order to improve survival rates, according to Drs. Rutger Jansen, technical service manager for swine at Boehringer Ingelheim in The Netherlands and a specialist on colostrum management. Lower mortality and more marketable pigs will pay for the 5-10 minutes of extra work time per litter involved in split- suckling. Dr. Jansen discusses details of the technique and also occasions when baby pigs may need training to drink from a teat or even bottle-feeding with colostrum milked from their mother or from another sow in the herd.

“The basic input for the pig that is needed is an intake of 250 grams of colostrum, then the survival chances are more or less equal for all the pigs”

Bigger litters from modern prolific sows increase the challenge of making sure that every newborn pig consumes enough colostrum, we hear from Drs. Rutger Jansen. He's field technical service manager in The Netherlands for the Boehringer Ingelheim swine health portfolio and takes a special interest in colostrum management in sow herds. The first indicator of whether colostrum is being managed correctly is the herd's rate of pre-weaning deaths, he says, since over 75% of mortality in the first days of life relates to insufficient intake. Colostrum production from a typical sow may not meet the needs of more than 15-16 newborn pigs and competition in big litters creates uneven distribution because the larger piglets drink more than their share.

“Our recent work demonstrated the presence of the PCV-3 genome within mild-to moderate histological lesions of aborted fetuses. This supports that PCV-3 should be considered as a potential causative pathogen for reproductive failure"

Professor Segalés shares his recent experience investigating the relevance of PCV3, posing the question: What is the clinical and economic impact of this emerging virus in sows and growing piglets? During this conversation we will hear the latests information that will help you understand the current state of knowledge.

“So far, all vaccines in the market have shown great efficacy in reducing clinical signs associated to diseases caused by PCV-2, independently of the genotype present in the farm. Moreover, experimental data demonstrated the cross-protection of PCV-2a vaccines against the most widespread genotypes (PCV-2a, PCV-2b, and PCV-2d). Therefore, despite the significant number of genotypes described/proposed (PCV-2a to PCV-2i), it seems one single PCV-2 serotype would exist".

Joaquim Segalés is full professor at the UAB and researcher at the IRTA-CReSA animal health research institute. He has been working with swine diseases for the last 28 years and he has also been working with zoonotic coronaviruses since 2014. He is co-author of more than 350 peer-reviewed publications, most of them on pig diseases and specifically on porcine circovirus diseases. Professor Segalés will share his wealth of experience on the evolution of the PCV2 virus and what that means in terms of diagnosis, understanding the evolving epidemiology and the control using vaccines. How can we make the right decisions on the farm?

“African swine fever and classical swine fever are two completely different diseases in their epidemiology and the behaviour of the virus”

How does the African swine fever virus reach and infect domestic pigs? The most common routes are spelled out in this podcast featuring Dr. Klaus Depner, a virologist and ASF specialist who leads a working group on transboundary animal disease management at FLI, the German federal institute for animal health. The virus does not enter on infected droplets or airborne transmission, he says, most often it has been carried into the barn by people. The main way it invades a pig's body is through contaminated feed or water, although even then only a small proportion of the animals exposed become infected.

“We learned that it's a human-made disease so it's a matter of what people are doing and how they behave”

Virologist Dr. Klaus Depner in Germany tells us that preventing the entry of the African swine fever virus is fundamentally a matter of good farm biosecurity coupled with education of the general public so they are not transmitting the virus or carrying it in food or other materials. At the German federal institute for animal health FLI, Dr. Depner heads a working group on transboundary animal disease management. Controlling ASF within territories demands a long view, he says. African swine fever is a disease where you need lots of patience.

“What is the effect on antibiotics…no, no, I mean antibodies”

Here at Meet The Expert, we mark the end of Season One on a lighter note by bringing you some out-take clips from the series. Hear our unintentional slips of the tongue and other moments when an interview with an expert did not go exactly to plan. Hear also the inside story of how the Covid coronavirus made us re-think our whole concept of how we would talk to swine health experts in different countries for a series of practical podcasts to interest field veterinarians and pork producers. New episodes for 2021 are already in the works --- Happy New Year!

Running time: 20 minutes

“The antibodies generated by some old vaccine strains have their neutralising capability reduced by the new PPV”

Professor André Felipe Streck of the University of Caxias do Sul in Brazil gives his expert view of the key question: Are long-established PPV vaccines still effective when faced with new field strains of the virus? He also discusses whether years of vaccinating sow herds against reproductive failure due to the porcine parvovirus PPV have played any part in the mutation of the virus into newer forms.

Running time: 20 minutes

“We have an evolutionary process with this virus…evolutionary hot-spots on the surface of the virus, located at points in contact with the host’s immune system”

In southern Brazil, Professor André Felipe Streck of the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Caxias do Sul leads us through the changing story of the porcine parvovirus PPV. Long considered a stable virus that could be controlled by vaccines developed four decades ago, its evolution into diverse forms has become evident since the year 2000. Newer strains display amino acid substitutions in the capsid or external protein layer of the virus which influence antigenicity.

Running time: 33 minutes