Expertise article

Guilty Gilt Guide
Expertise article

Guilty Guilt Guide

The Guilty Gilt Guide was written with a clear objective – to maximize the whole-herd performance of pig populations by helping gilts to reach their full reproductive potential and produce healthy pigs that reach their full genetic potential during grow-finish.

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Expertise article

Implementing a user-friendly format to analyze PRRSV next-generation sequencing results and associating breeding herd production performance with number of PRRSV strains and recombination events

The open reading frames (ORF)5 represents approximately 4% of the porcine repro- ductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV)-2 genome (whole-PRRSV) and is often determined by the Sanger technique, which rarely detects >1 PRRSV strain if present in the sample.

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Expertise article

Refining PRRSV-2 genetic classification based on global ORF5 sequences and investigation of their geographic distributions and temporal changes

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is an important swine pathogen affecting the global swine industry.

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Expertise article

Effect of multiple vaccinations on transmission and degree of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae infection in gilts

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (M. hyopneumoniae) infections continue to result in significant respiratory challenges in the swine industry worldwide. Vaccination for M. hyopneumoniae is commonly utilized, as reduction in bacterial loads and clinical severity in vaccinated pigs have been shown. However, the effect of M. hyopneumoniae vaccination on transmission across different pig populations has been minimally investigated.

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Expertise article

Examination of viraemia and clinical signs after challenge with a heterologous PRRSV strain in PRRS Type 2 MLV vaccinated pigs: A challenge-dose study

Vaccination with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) Type 2 modified-live vaccines (MLVs) has been shown to improve clinical signs and survival rates in PRRS virus (PRRSV)-challenged pigs. This study evaluated the dose of PRRSV challenge needed to cause and maintain viraemia in PRRS Type 2 MLV-vaccinated pigs and assessed clinical responses to various doses of virulent challenge. This controlled, randomised, blinded vaccination-challenge study involved 95 pigs who were either vaccinated with 2 mL of a PRRS Type 2 MLV on Day 0 or left unvaccinated. On Day 28, pigs were challenged intranasally with virulent PRRSV isolate (dose range <1.5 to 4 log10 50% tissue culture infectious dose/mL). Five pigs were left unchallenged and served as environmental controls. Viraemia levels, pyrexia, average daily weight gain and clinical signs were assessed. At all challenge doses, vaccinated groups had reduced viraemia levels and clinical signs, and higher average daily weight gain compared with non-vaccinated groups. Vaccinated groups challenged with ≤2 log had similar viraemia levels and clinical performance (days pyrexic and average daily weight gain) as the non-challenged group. Vaccinated groups had significantly reduced pyrexic days compared with non-vaccinated groups across all challenge doses (P <.05). Vaccinated pigs challenged with <3 log had significantly improved average daily weight gain (P <.05). In vaccinated groups, challenge dose correlated positively with viraemia levels and number of days pyrexic, and negatively with average daily weight gain. This is the first study to use a challenge-dose model to evaluate the efficacy of vaccination against PRRSV. PRRS Type 2 MLV was shown to mitigate the consequences of PRRSV infection at all evaluated PRRSV challenge doses. Lower levels of challenge had minimal impact on health and performance of vaccinated pigs, supporting the benefit of vaccinating swine with PRRS Type 2 MLV.

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Expertise article

Immunization of pigs with a type 2 modified live PRRSV vaccine prevents the development of a deadly long lasting hyperpyrexia in a challenge study with highly pathogenic PRRSV JX143

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) has been confirmed to be the underlying cause of the so-called ‘porcine high fever disease’ (PHFD), a disease that emerged in China in 2006 and subsequently spread over South East Asia. The aim of this study was to investigate whether animals challenged with the Chinese highly pathogenic PRRSV JX143 would be protected by vaccination with single dose of a type 2 modified live virus (MLV) vaccine. Forty-four pigs 17–19 days of age were weighed and randomly assigned to either vaccination with subsequent challenge (V/C, n = 20), challenge only (NV/C, n = 12) and no vaccination and no challenge (strict controls, n = 12). Pigs of the challenged groups (V/C and NV/C) were inoculated intranasally 27 days post-vaccination with PRRSV JX143. Animals were monitored during the subsequent 21 days post challenge and were necropsied at the end of the experiment on day 49. Observations and measurements included body temperature, clinical scores for behavior/general condition, cough and breathing pattern, mortality, serological response and PRRSV viremia via RNA detection. Challenge in the NV/C pigs resulted in 100% morbidity and 67% mortality whereas all vaccinated pigs survived. There was a close association between hyperpyrexia (fever over 41 °C) and incidence in mortality, which was completely prevented by vaccination. Clinical symptoms were less severe, and of transient nature only, in the vaccinated pigs. Vaccination did not prevent infection, but reduced the impact of clinical disease and prevented hyperpyrexia associated mortality.

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Expertise article

Efficacy of Type 2 PRRSV vaccine against challenge with the Chinese lineage 1 (NADC30-like) PRRSVs in pigs

The objective of the present study was to determine the cross-protection of Ingelvac PRRS MLV against challenge with the new lineage 1 PRRSV emerged in China in pigs. Two lineage 1 PRRSV strains (FJZ03 and FJWQ16 originated from recombination event between NADC30 and JXA1-like strain). We found that pigs vaccinated with the vaccine were protected against challenge with the FJZ03 as shown by fewer days of clinical fever, reduced lung pathology scores, lower PRRS virus load in the blood and developed broadly neutralizing antibodies with high titers to FJZ03. In contrast, vaccine provided limited protection against challenge with FJWQ16 with higher fever, lower antibody titers, lower neutralizing antibodies and higher viral loads in blood. These results demonstrate PRRSV-MLV provides incomplete protection against new lineage 1 PRRSVs.

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Expertise article

Commercial porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV)-2 modified live virus vaccine against heterologous single and dual Korean PRRSV-1 and PRRSV-2 challenge

This study evaluated porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV)-2 modified live virus (MLV) vaccine against heterologous single and dual challenge of Korean PRRSV-1 and PRRSV-2. Pigs were administered PRRSV-2 MLV vaccine intramuscularly at 21 days of age and inoculated intranasally with both genotypes at 56 days of age. Vaccination of pigs with PRRSV-2 MLV vaccine resulted in reduction of viral loads of both PRRSV-1 and PRRSV-2 after heterologous single and dual challenge with PRRSV-1 and PRRSV-2. In addition, pigs vaccinated with PRRSV-2 MLV vaccine exhibited higher frequencies of PRRSV-1 and PRRSV-2 specific interferon-γ secreting cells (IFN-γ-SC) and showed a significant reduction in lung lesions and PRRSV nucleic acid within the lung lesions after single and dual challenge compared with unvaccinated challenged pigs. Taken together these results demonstrated that vaccination of pigs with PRRSV-2 is efficacious in protecting growing pigs from respiratory disease against heterologous single and dual PRRSV-1 and PRRSV-2 challenge.