Pork Producers Advised to Take Precautions to Prevent Spread of Respiratory Disease to Sow Farms

Pork producers are being advised to increase their focus this fall on biosecurity to reduce the spread of PRRS from pigs in the wean to market phase of production to sow farms.The Swine Health Information Center's November Domestic Swine Disease Monitoring Report indicates we saw increases in PRRS, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae and Influenza A virus.

SHIC Associate Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says, with PRRS, we specifically saw an increase in the wean to market phase of production.

Clip-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

The increase was from 33 percent positive in September to approximately 39 percent positive in October.We saw that specifically in the wean to market phase.We did not see a significant increase in the adult and sow farms. I think it's an important highlight here to talk about that, fairly predicably every fall, we see an increase in the PRRS virus percent positive first in that wean to market phase and subsequently we see an increase in the sow, adult, breeding farm increase in PRRS.

Right now, we are only seeing the increase in the wean to market phase which provides us an opportunity to hopefully prevent that spillover that we believe occurs every fall when we see an increase in PRRS virus in that wean to market phase prior to seeing an increase in the sow and breeding farm phase and so it's an opportunity to enhance biosecurity and increase your biocontainment policies and procedures at the wean to market phase.

Dr. Niederwerder notes the domestic swine disease monitoring program advisory group suggests limiting the number of caretakers flowing into the different grow-finish sites to reduce spread of PRRS and the likelihood of spillover to those sow breeding farms that typically occurs in the fall months.