News – Page 59 – Swine in Minnesota

The 2019 Leman conference is in less than two weeks!

Swine health experts from around the country are convening at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference to present on topics including PRRS diagnostics, risk factors, and incidence; improving pig survival; keeping Mycoplasma out of the farm; vitamin deficiencies; and emergency planning and response to pig farm disasters. Registration is still open! We look forward to seeing you there.

Monitoring and updating the value of productivity losses due to PRRSv

This week, we are sharing a report from Drs. Holtkamp and Linhares in association with the MSHMP team, regarding the updated cost of PRRS for the US industry.

Keypoints

Productivity in breeding herds affected by PRRSV relative to unaffected herds has improved since 2010, suggesting producers and veterinarians have made progress in controlling PRRSV.
Combined effect of these changes resulted in a net reduction in the value of productivity losses due to PRRSV of $138 million, a 20.8% reduction compared to the $664 million per year estimated in 2010.

A roadmap to Food Animal Careers at the UMN CVM

Today we are sharing a publication in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education from Dr. Perle Boyer (Zhitnitskiy) presenting a new online tool for students enrolled at the University of Minnesota, College of Veterinary Medicine to choose selective course tailored to their career path.

Frequency and origin of live imports of breeding-stock pigs to the United States

This week, we are sharing a report from the MSHMP team in collaboration with the Swine Health Information Center regarding the origin of the pigs that are imported for breeding purposes.

Key Points

International live pig transport is a possible route for disease entry into the U.S.
The first step in assessing this risk is to categorize and analyze breeding stock import data
Small numbers of imported breeding pigs have come from a variety of countries, but the majority come from Canada

PCR clamping for selectively sequencing wild-type PRRSV in vaccinated herds

This week, we are sharing a report by Harmon et al. from Iowa State University regarding PCR clamping. This project was funded by AAVLD Thermo Fisher Innovation Grant in Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine and ISU-VDL.

Key points

Conventional ORF5 sequencing may not differentiate between wild-type or vaccine-like.
Blocking the amplification of vaccine-like sequences it is possible to increase the likelihood of wild-type amplification.
Clamping allows the amplification of the wild-type with mixtures containing as little as 10% of a mixture with the vaccine-like.