Trouble for canadian swine

New bacterial gang specialized in “top level” pig farms!

During the 20 years we tracked Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (App), responsible for pleuropneumonia, the efficiency of serologic monitoring in herds has done wonders in Ontario and in Quebec by reducing the level of infections to serotype 1 from 68% to 5%. This is what Dr. Marcelo Gottschalk and his team at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Université de Montréal detailed in a recent Cross-Canada Disease Report which compares data collected in 1992 and 2014. However, two new factions have started to stand out in an intriguing way. Indeed, serotypes 8 and 12 are targetting high health status herds. We better understand the insistence of researchers from the Swine and Poultry Infectious Diseases Research Center (CRIPA) to recommend determining the herd serology as a disease surveillance tool, especially for naive herds (namely that have never been exposed to App) and for high health status herds which should be free of App.

Good news for Streptococcus suis (S. Suis): it’s still the same picture for Canadian herds. Type 2, ½, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 serotypes are still the most commonly found in sick pigs. This bacterium, although not solely responsible for these affections, can cause multiple diseases in pigs: nervous disorders, septicemias (infection in blood) with sudden death, arthritis and endocarditis (damage to the heart). Identification of S. suis serotypes is still important as 20% of sampled bacteria are non-typable and require specific molecular analysis.

Source: Distribution of Streptococcus suis (from 2012 to 2014) and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (from 2001 to 2014) serotypes isolated from diseased pigs.

Gottschalk M, Lacouture S. Cross-Canada Disease Report, CVJ, Vol. 56, October 2015.