On Saturday, May 7th was held the graduation ceremony for the 2016 DVM students as well as for the graduate students enrolled in the VMED program.
Among them, the UMN swine group is happy to announce the graduation of Drs. Carmen Alonso, Nitipong Homwong, Catalina Picasso, and Jisun Sun.
Please join us in congratulating them for their academic success!
It is our distinct pleasure and a great honor to announce that Dr. Bob Morrison has been selected to be one of this year Masters of the Pork Industry. This title, delivered by the National Hog Farmer recognizes individuals who dedicated their careers to the advancement of pork production. As said by the magazine, those leaders are “professionals, entrepreneurs and family-based pork industry enthusiasts whose dedication and wisdom are sure to inspire young and old as they tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in an ever-changing global pork industry.”
Among all of the great work Dr. Morrison is doing with the industry, we will mention the Swine Health Monitoring Program (SHMP), a collaborative effort from 26 pork producers who voluntarily share their data about disease outbreaks they may be experiencing. While the program started with three pork producers focusing on Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, it has expended to almost 40% of the sows in the US and has included other pathogens like Seneca Valley virus.
Under Dr. Morrison’s leadership, the Allen D. Leman conference and its counterpart Leman China have been created. Those two conferences, which motto is “science-driven solutions” aim at providing the latest and the most relevant information in swine health and production to all of the industry players. The next conference will be held in St. Paul from September 17th to September 20th. More information can be found here.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Morrison for this great accomplishment.
A scientific paper published today in PLOS ONE reveals that based on three-level mixed-effects logistic regression models, the epidemiology of swine rotaviruses in North America is quite complex. The goal of the study led by Drs. Homwong, Perez, Rossow, and Marthaler from the University of Minnesota was to investigate the associations among age, rotavirus detection, and regions within the US swine production in samples submitted for diagnosis to the Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
Percentages of Rotavirus A (RVA), Rotavirus B (RVB), and Rotavirus C (RVC) samples by state.
The color represented highest prevalence of the RV species (green represents RVA, purple represents RVB, blue represents RVC while pink represents equal percentages of RVA and RVC
Abstract: Rotaviruses (RV) are important causes of diarrhea in animals, especially in domestic animals. Of the 9 RV species, rotavirus A, B, and C (RVA, RVB, and RVC, respectively) had been established as important causes of diarrhea in pigs. The Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory receives swine stool samples from North America to determine the etiologic agents of disease. Between November 2009 and October 2011, 7,508 samples from pigs with diarrhea were submitted to determine if enteric pathogens, including RV, were present in the samples. All samples were tested for RVA, RVB, and RVC by real time RT-PCR. The majority of the samples (82%) were positive for RVA, RVB, and/or RVC. To better understand the risk factors associated with RV infections in swine diagnostic samples, three-level mixed-effects logistic regression models (3L-MLMs) were used to estimate associations among RV species, age, and geographical variability within the major swine production regions in North America. The conditional odds ratios (cORs) for RVA and RVB detection were lower for 1–3 day old pigs when compared to any other age group. However, the cOR of RVC detection in 1–3 day old pigs was significantly higher (p < 0.001) than pigs in the 4–20 days old and >55 day old age groups. Furthermore, pigs in the 21–55 day old age group had statistically higher cORs of RV co-detection compared to 1–3 day old pigs (p < 0.001). The 3L-MLMs indicated that RV status was more similar within states than among states or within each region. Our results indicated that 3L-MLMs are a powerful and adaptable tool to handle and analyze large-hierarchical datasets. In addition, our results indicated that, overall, swine RV epidemiology is complex, and RV species are associated with different age groups and vary by regions in North America.