CWSHIN Encourages Development of Diagnostics for Sapovirus

The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network is calling on the diagnostic labs to set the development of a test for Sapovirus as a high priority.
The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network's swine disease surveillance report for the first quarter of 2023 highlights the detection of Sapovirus, an infection which may contribute to scours in young pigs.

CWSHIN Manager Dr. Jette Christensen says Sapovirus is a new virus for which we don't have a test in Canada or a vaccine so we don't know how frequent it is but it was seen in a couple of barns in the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.

Clip-Dr. Jette Christensen-Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network:

The story is pretty much this scours, diarrhea in young pigs, either suckling pigs or in nurseries.A few have said a little bit older too, so early growers.
We find Sapovirus because all other usual causes of diarrhea have been ruled out and then samples might be sent tot the U.S. for testing and they find Sapovirus.

It's still unclear exactly how much it contributes to diarrhea in young pigs because it often seems to be there together with something else so we want to know more.First of all, from CWSHIN, we have sent messages to the laboratories and suggested to them that they could set development of a test for Sapovirus as a high priority.

Once we have a test we can figure out exactly how common Sapovirus is.We can also figure out more about how does it contribute to scours and finally, once we have those sorted out, we can also try to come up with a vaccine or get some licences for vaccine.

Dr. Christensen acknowledges there is a lot of unknowns but the most important take-home message is that practitioners do not stand alone in dealing with these rare infections.