Disease control – Swine in Minnesota

Partitioning, a novel approach to mitigate the risk and impact of African Swine Fever (ASF) in endemic settings

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.

In this week’s Science Page Solenne Costard, Andres M. Perez, Francisco J. Zagmutt, Jane G. Pouzou, and Huybert Groenendaal share how partioning would contribute to the improved resilience and sustainability of the global pork industry.

Yes, science should inform policy, but how?

By Kaitlyn St. Charles, Carol Cardona, Timothy Goldsmith, Cesar Corzo and Marie Culhane, University of Minnesota

Stop movement orders are a big deal for all production phases, particularly for live pigs, but also for semen movements from boar studs to breeding farms.

In the United States, animal agriculture is having to make tough decisions about the quickly spreading and far-reaching diseases caused by H5 2.3.4.4b influenza A virus (USDA 2024). There have been substantial organized efforts to control H5 2.3.4.4b IAV in domestic poultry, because it is the cause of highly pathogenic avian influenza with severe illness and high death loss in infected flocks. So, it should be no surprise that efforts need to be made to control virus spread in other species, including humans.

Wait and see? Biosecurity decision-making under disease risk – Part 2

In the previous science page, Gabriela Bucini, Scott C. Merrill, Eric M. Clark, and Julie M. Smith of the Social Ecological Gaming and Simulation Lab at the University of Vermont shared that the decisions made by the players in different scenarios of disease risk, risk communication strategies, and neighboring farm biosecurity implementation allowed us to identify three prominent behavioral groups. The risk tolerant players invested very little in biosecurity in contrast to risk averse players who invested consistently throughout the simulation to protect their farms. Our third category, risk opportunists, primarily invested in biosecurity during high risk scenarios but limited investments during rounds with lower chance of infection.

Wait and see? Biosecurity decision-making under disease risk – Part 1

This short science page offers insights on decision making where a wait-and-see attitude induces a delay in biosecurity investments and implementation, which creates instability and uncertainty in the industry’s ability and capacity to control disease. Written by Gabriela Bucini, Scott C. Merrill, Eric M. Clark, and Julie M. Smith of the Social Ecological Gaming and Simulation Lab, University of Vermont.

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.