MSHMP – Swine in Minnesota

Updates on monitored PRRSV variants

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.

Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) continues to evolve, posing ongoing challenges for swine health management. This report, brought to you by the MSHMP team, provides an update on several monitored PRRSV variants of interest—1H.18, 1C.2, and 1C.5—along with two recently split variants, 1C.5.32 and 1C.5.36. These updates reflect current detection patterns as of early May 2025, geographic distribution, and clustering activity, helping stakeholders stay informed about trends in variant circulation and transmission dynamics.

Science-Based Biosecurity Sustainably Prevents PRRSv Infection and Improves Productivity in Swine Breeding Herds

On this first Tuesday of December, we are featuring a new paper from the MSHMP team in collaboration with Pipestone research, published in the journal Animals and available in open-access. This article, a follow-up from a previous publication, compares key performance indicators between farms implementing Next Generation Biosecurity (NGB) or not. Refer back to the first publication for a description of NGB which encompasses measures to control four routes of disease transmission (direct, mechanical, feed, and aerosol) and a retrospective analysis of PRRSv incidence rates for 2 years.

Recent Research Highlights from MSHMP

Our research group continues to drive innovation in swine health by focusing on critical challenges faced by the industry. Through collaborative efforts, our recent publications explore diverse aspects of swine disease detection, management, and epidemiology, contributing to the broader understanding of swine health and welfare. Below are three of our latest research contributions:

A Review of MSHMP PED Chart 3: PED Outbreak History

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.

During the 2016-17 MSHMP year, we introduced a graph, PED Chart 3, in response to the recurring question of if farms that break with PED had repeating histories of infection. The horizontal axis is shown at the top and indicates the number of farms that have broken in the current MSHMP season. New farms are added throughout the year as they break. On the vertical axis we list each of these farms’ PED historical number of breaks in past seasons. Outbreaks are colored in blue, a darker tone indicates that a farm has had more than one outbreak within the year, and grey indicates a lack of historical data (Figure 1).

Duration and time between PRRSV epidemic periods

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.

Today the MSHMP team shares the most recent EWMA chart of weekly PRRSV incidence and helps readers understand what it all means.