Swine in Minnesota

Exploring heterologous prime-boost vaccination approaches to enhance influenza control in pigs

Chong Li and colleagues from the University of Minnesota provide new insights for the potential use of the heterologous prime-boost vaccination strategy to control swine infuenza A virus (IAV) infection in pigs by bringing us a research article published in Veterinary Research.

Highlights

Heterologous prime-boost vaccination has the potential to deal with diverse IAV infection in multiple animal models.
Pigs in the heterologous prime-boost vaccination group had more favorable outcomes consistent with a better response against virus challenge (H1N1 and H3N2 IAV) than non-vaccinated pigs.
Similarly, a multivalent heterologous inactivated vaccine boost to pigs following a single live attenuated IAV vaccine (LAIV) administration was also beneficial.
More studies are still needed to validate the concept of heterologous prime-boost to control IAV under feld conditions.

Studies on Heterologous Protection Between Japanese Type 1 and Type 2 Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus Isolates

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.

Dr. Iseki and colleagues from the National Institute of Animal Health (NIAH, Japan) present studies on heterologous protection between Japanese type 1 and type 2 porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) isolates. The level of cross-protection that a type 2-based PRRSV vaccine can confer against various type 1 PRRSV field strains is important because no type 1 PRRSV-based vaccine is commercially available in Japan. Find this work here as an advanced publication of the Journal of Veterinary Medical Science.

Key Points:

This study evaluated the cross-protective immunity between type 1 and type 2 PRRSV isolates in growing pigs.
Immunity induced by the type 1 infection may play a role in reducing viremia caused by the type 2 PRRSV.
The immunity induced by the type 2 may not contribute to cross-protection against the type 1.

Best of Leman #7: M. Ellis – Managing Piglet Preweaning Mortality

This is our most popular series on the blog. Once a month, we are sharing with you a presentation given at the Allen D. Leman swine conference, on topics that the swine group found interesting, innovative or that lead to great discussions.

We can find all of the presentations selected from previous conferences on the blog here.

Today, we look back at one of the keynote presentations of the 2019 Allen D. Leman conference. Dr. Mike Ellis from the University of Illinois explains why we should not dismiss pre-weaning mortality and what strategies can be used to mitigate it.

Molecular detection of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome virus, Porcine Circovirus 2 and Hepatitis E virus in oral fluid compared to their detection in feces and serum

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.

Doctors Plut, Kamnikar-Ciglenecki and Stukeli from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) highlight the usefulness of pig oral fluid (OF) to detect Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV), Porcine Circovirus Type 2 (PCV2) and Hepatitis E virus (HEV) in different pig age categories. Read here the full article published in BMC Veterinary Research.

Key Points

OF, feces and serum were evaluated for the detection of PRRSV, PCV2 and HEV in six farms.
OF samples had good agreement with serum sample PCR results for the detection of all three viruses.
The study highlights that pooled samples can potentially be used to investigate viral presence on farms.

The University of Minnesota Extension Swine Team has created a video on how to butcher a pig for home use

With few Extension resources available on how to butcher a pig for home use, Sarah Schieck Boelke and her colleagues, Ryan Cox, Dallas Dornink and Lee Johnston created a video on how to butcher a pig for home use, including human safety, pig welfare and food safety discussions. Click here to watch the video.