Special Report

Unpredictability of PEDv

A year into the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in the U.S. and there are still more questions than answers.  At the World Pork Expo, Tom Burkgren, head of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians said sow immunity is still a big question mark, “Especially with some of the recurrences you’ll have good litters and next to them will be a bad litter where you have continued diarrhea, death loss, pre-weaning mortality staying at about 30-percent. So, that really presents a challenge for our veterinarians and producers on the farms.”

Since January of this year, he says there have been some herds affected by PEDv that have taken longer to get to negative than most affected herds last year. Burkgren says, “Sixty-to-70-percent of the farms you can get negative pigs out in six weeks. But, there remains a percentage of farms where the virus has been more persistent and it doesn’t seem to really correlate with high or low biosecurity.”

But, Burkgren stresses that the practice of feedback for immunity and increased biosecurity are the top things producers can do to try and keep PEDv away. Meanwhile, increased industry and government funding is going into PEDv management and research.

AUDIO: Dr. Tom Burkgren at 2014 World Pork Expo news conference (5:00 mp3)