Viruses that infect pigs can survive in feed for trips of 6,000 miles, researchers at Dr. Scott Dee’s Pipestone Applied Research have found.
They knew viruses could survive in feeds ingredients from lab tests they ran, so for this experiment they spiked 30-gram vials of feed with several swine disease viruses and then drove them around the United States.
At the end of the trip the viruses were still potent. They were porcine reproductive and respiratory virus (PRRSV), Senecavirus A (SVA), and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDV).
It is known that PED came to Ontario in 2014 in feed ingredient used by Grand Valley Fortifiers of Cambridge.
Dee’s research team recovered the viruses from all five of the tested feed ingredients, but found that survival was limited in the vitamins and amino acid ingredients.
The 21-day trip went from Minneapolis to Colorado, to Texas, through the South, up the Atlantic coast and back to Minneapolis.
Now the team intends to repeat the trial in November, but in one-ton totes.
“We wanted to expose the viruses to as many environments as possible in the continental U.S.,” Dee explained in a Swine Health Information Centerr release. “This was like an actual commercial journey.”
