Initial Infectious Aerosols Biocontainment Project Results Released

Initial results of a Swine Health Information Center funded Infectious Aerosols Biocontainment Project conducted by University of Minnesota have been released. Researchers with the University of Minnesota are examining existing and emerging aerosol technologies and procedures in hopes of finding ways to keep bioaerosols from triggering disease outbreaks in swine.

Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg explains previous disease outbreak experiences have shown the types of aerosols of concern.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

We know for example that PRRS is a very light virus that can be airborne. It can form a viral cloud if you will over a facility, if there's a break. It's like other respiratory viruses in that it is spewed out into the atmosphere, spewed out into the environment by coughing, by respiratory as well as by being aerosolised in excretions.

There is an additional type of aerosol that is of concern and the best example of that is our experience with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea, PED. PED is a fecal-oral pathogen. It's shed in feces and, when a pig comes into contact with it orally, either in feed or in some mechanism, something that will carry that virus to the pig and it gets into the pig's digestive system, a very small amount of virus can cause a disease.

With PED, even though it's not a classical aerosolised virus, our experience showed that the air could carry it on dust, for example, from one area to another. Dust from feces that have the virus in them could moved from one farm to another whether it's high wind velocities, open areas and high wind.