Antimicrobial resistance is an expression that everyone in swine production has heard at least once but what does it really mean? How are you as a producer or veterinarian affected?
In this column for the National Hog Farmer, Dr. Carles Vilalta explains that beyond the definition of a bacterium that is not affected by an antimicrobial, there are two different approaches to think about resistance:
One is determined by the Minimal Inhibitory Concentration or MIC, which records the minimum medicine concentration required to stop the growth of the bacteria.
The other focuses on the presence of genes enabling the bacterium to counteract the effect of the antimicrobial.
These genes are usually present in a sub-population of bacteria called mutants. The video below created by Harvard Medical School shows how these mutants can develop, adapt, and survive the highest antimicrobial concentrations. (video length < 2min)
This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.
This week, the Science Page honors Dr. Robert Morrison, the founder and leader of the Swine Health Monitoring Project.
Bob’s unique talent for creating relationships that advanced the swine industry culminated in the creation of the Swine Health Monitoring Project (SHMP), one of the initiatives that Bob carried with pride. […] As it evolved, the SHMP changed names several times but many in the industry simply refer to it as “Bob’s project”. For that reason, and to give the just recognition he deserves, we have decided to renam the project to “Dr. Bob Morrison’s SHMP” (MSHMP).
A lot of you are asking for news and updates of the situation in Prague, or how you can help. Everything is now centralized in a Caring Bridge web page for Jeanie. We are keeping the Morrison, Spronk, and Wetzell families in our thoughts and wish Jeanie a full and quick recovery.
We are trying to give you a daily update on the situation regarding the auto accident that happened in Prague on Tuesday and lead to Dr. Morrison’s passing.
As of today, Jeanie Morrison, Dr. Morrison’s wife, is no longer in a life-threatening condition said the doctors in charge of her recovery. We do not have any further information but the Morrison family is in the process of creating a online information page to provide updates on Jeanie’s situation. We will add the link here when it is available.
In Canada and the USA alike, Senecavirus A is a challenge for producers and veterinarians because of its clinical similarity to Food and Mouth Disease (FMD). Indeed, Senecavirus A, is a causative agent of swine vesicular disease with lesions developing on the snout, around the mouth and on the coronary band of the feet. Therefore, being able to differentiate Senecavirus A infections from FMD rapidly is of utmost importance to be able to take the appropriate measures.
In the past months, several diagnostic tests have been developed at the University of Minnesota to detect antibodies against Senecavirus A. The difference between those tests and the in situ hybridization (ISH) described here is that ISH targets the genetic material included in the viral particle and marks it as a red spot as can be seen on the figure below. This advantage of this method is to be able to locate the virus and gives additional information to researcher wanting to study the behavior of Senecavirus A in the body of the pig.
Seneca Valley virus (SVV) is the causative agent of an emerging vesicular disease in swine, which is clinically indistinguishable from other vesicular diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease. In addition, SVV has been associated with neonatal mortality in piglets. While a commercial SVV qRT-PCR is available, commercial antibodies are lacking to diagnose SVV infections by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Thus, a novel in situ hybridization technique—RNAscope (ISH) was developed to detect SVVRNA in infected tissues. From a total of 78 samples evaluated, 30 were positive by qRT-PCR and ISH-RNA, including vesicular lesions of affected sows, ulcerative lesions in the tongue of piglets and various other tissues with no evidence of histological lesions. Nineteen samples were negative for SVV by qRT-PCR and ISH-RNA. The Ct values of the qRT-PCR from ISH-RNA positive tissues varied from 12.0 to 32.6 (5.12 x 106 to 5.31 RNA copies/g, respectively). The ISH-RNA technique is an important tool in diagnosing and investigating the pathogenesis of SVV and other emerging pathogens.
This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Swine Health Monitoring Project. The 
