What is PEDV and Why Do We Care?
Hello pig farmers! Today, we are looking into an important topic that affects the pig industry: Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, or PEDV for short. As a pig farmer, you are well aware of challenges you face in maintaining a disease-free herd, and PEDV is one of the big ones. So, let’s dive on in and discuss what PEDV is and what you can do to prevent it on your farm.
Some of you might be relatively new to the industry and may be wondering what PEDV is. PEDV is a highly contagious diarrhea infection found in pigs. PEDV targets the intestines of pigs, damaging the delicate intestinal cells, which causes loss of fluid, diarrhea, and ultimately dehydration. For adult pigs, these symptoms are relatively minor and they will recover fairly quickly. However, young piglets are drastically affected and the virus can rapidly increase mortality rates in that age group. And as many of you know, these little piglets are the key to your income, so every piglet you lose is a hit to the wallet.
But how does it get into your farm? PEDV is predominately found in pig feces, but it also can be found in semen and blood plasma of infected pigs. Therefore, the most common way for PEDV to get into your farm is by hitching a ride on trailers, trucks, and boots via leftover infected feces. PEDV can also get in whenever a new shipment of pigs arrives and they are infected with the virus.
So how do you prevent PEDV from getting into your farm and spreading to all of your pigs? There are 2 main steps to prevention: strict biosecurity measures and isolation/quarantine. Biosecurity measures are things like: regulating who enters the farm, providing all workers and visitors with clean coveralls and boots, and regular disinfection of work spaces and equipment. Isolation/quarantine means separating the sick pigs from the healthy ones and keeping them in a quarantined space until they are no longer infection. Isolation is also important when new pigs arrive, since they may be infected and could infect your entire herd.
Why would you be concerned about PEDV getting into your farm? As we mentioned before, PEDV can increase the death toll in your herd, which will lead to significant financial losses. PEDV also affects the overall health of the herd. Sick pigs will grow/develop slower that healthy pigs, and abortion rates in sows can increase if they are infected with PEDV. Lastly, outbreaks affect the entire pork industry. Possibly infected pigs cannot travel, so pigs are not being moved between barns at the appropriate times and causing backlogs. Sick pigs also cannot enter the supply chain, which will affect pork availability and prices.
So, what should you do if you suspect it has infiltrated your farm? Your first step should be contacting your local vet. PEDV is a reportable disease in Manitoba, so all suspected cases should be checked by a vet and have testing done to confirm its presence. There are multiple lab methods that can be used to detect PEDV, but the main one used is qPCR. qPCR is fast and sensitive, making it ideal for quick and accurate results. There are a couple of labs in Manitoba that offer PEDV testing, and we are one of them! We offer same day testing if samples are dropped off by 11am Monday-Friday, and we will send your results directly to your email by the end of the day. Interested? Check out our Animal Diagnostics testing list here.
References:
Porcine epidemic diarrhoea (PED) | The Pig Site
Province of Manitoba | agriculture - Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (gov.mb.ca)