This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.
The movement of live pigs between farms is an important mechanism for disease introduction and spread. Thus, understanding the structure of livestock contacts and studying the routes, volumes, frequency, and the risks associated with animal movement is a prerequisite for effective disease surveillance and control in animal populations.
At the same time, local area spread between neighboring farms is also implicated in the spread of viruses such as porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV).
Even after controlling for hog density and season of the year, we showed that the number of pigs received into neighboring farms was an important predictor of PED infection risk.
Key Points
- Between farm transmission research in swine has primarily come from small studies rather than large scale datasets.
- By looking at environmental/landscape, pig movements, and spatial factors, we studied the likelihood of a farm contracting PED from it’s neighbors.
- It was found that the number of pigs received by neighboring farms was an important predictor of PEDV infection risk.
Click here to see the full Science page report on the various parameters and their relative importance in predicting risk of PEDV infection.