Science Page: Prevalence comparison among different MSHMP cohorts

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.

This week, we are sharing a report from the MSHMP team regarding the differences in PRRS prevalence among various cohorts.

Key points:

• Prevalence among cohorts does not differ.
• Seasonal patterns can be seen in different cohorts located in different regions.

A comparison from a prevalence standpoint between the cohort of farms belonging to the 13 systems participating at the start of the MSHMP (CS) and the cohort of farms from systems that joined the program later (CL), was performed with the objective of assessing whether the patterns between cohorts compare.

As seen in Figure 1–CS, there was a clear shift towards more use of MLV over LVI for sow herd stability purposes. The proportion of farms using LVI in the CS versus the CL is 5% and 10%, respectively. When assessing the proportion of farms in each AASV PRRS category (Holtkamp et al., 2011) both groups are comparable (Table 1). Also the temporal pattern of infection can be seen in both cohorts as described by Tousignant et al (2014).

In summary, both cohorts of farms (CS versus CL) yield similar results which continue to highlight the robustness of the program and the representativeness of the systems contributing to this program.