Wednesday, August 30, 2023

New virus detected in Ontario pigs

Two cases of sapovirus have been detected in pigs in Ontario.

The samples were sent to the Animal Health Laboratory at Guelph and the results were confirmed by a lab at Iowa .


The virus causes diarrhea and atropic enteritis in nursery pigs.


There are no vaccines available for treatment.


In the United States farmers use autogenous vaccines (i.e. home-made ones developed from diseases pigs).


A posting on the Canadian Health Network said “the mixing of bacterial and viral agents in a single autogenous vaccine is not allowed in Canada and the number of viruses that can be included in one autogenous vaccine is limited. 

 

“With the transfer to loose‐sow housing, producers are requesting that the total number of vaccines given is limited to prevent health and safety concerns for workers that are tasked with vaccinating the same animals’ multiple times. 


“Also, in Canada the approval times to add new isolated viruses like Sapovirus into an already used autogenous vaccine is slow and often will not help in an outbreak case situation.”