JEV Literature Review Sheds New Light on the Risks of Transmission and Establishment in North America

Kansas State University has completed a literature review of Japanese encephalitis.Japanese encephalitis, a viral infection concentrated in southeast Asia which affects multiple species including pigs and humans, was identified in 2022 in Australia.

In an effort to learn more about the biology, components and dynamics of transmission and environmental factors necessary for incursion and establishment of the infection, Kansas State University with funding from the Swine Health Information Center conducted a systematic literature review.SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says the review will be used to assist in an ongoing assessment of the risk of establishment of JEV in North America.

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

For pigs it is primarily a reproductive disease-causing extended gestation and abortions.It can be devastating to a specific farm that has a JEV outbreak.
It can cause production losses for months if it goes through the whole farm.Interestingly in Australia we've seen that some farms are highly affected with large losses and other farms may have an infection or two and that would be it.

The literature review looked at those types of production losses, it looked at the diagnostics that are available and it looked at reported on vaccine status.
Vaccine is probably one of the most effective measures for controlling JEV.It's been used in Japan for a long time, routinely vaccinating pigs in Japan.
Those are the kind of general topics that we were looking at.

We were looking at epidemiology, at diagnostics, at risk factors, at vaccination and vaccines so we make sure that we could understand and inform our risk assessment about those issues.

Dr. Sundberg says information gathered through the literature review will support the development of policies and response plans for JEV.