Streptococcus suis can cause meningitis, polyarthritis and acute death in piglets. However, the risk factors associated with S. suis infection remain incompletely understood.
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) has caused huge economic losses for the global pig industry, but its origins and evolution remain a mystery.
Family oral fluids (FOF) sampling has been described as a sampling technique where a rope is exposed to sows and respective suckling litters and thereafter wrung to obtain fluids.
The definition “porcine respiratory disease complex” (PRDC) is used to indicate the current approach for presenting respiratory pathology in modern pig farming.
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Immunization is a cornerstone of public health policy and is demonstrably highly cost-effective when used to protect child health. Although it could be argued that immunology has not thus far contributed much to vaccine development, in that most of the vaccines we use today were developed and tested empirically, it is clear that there are major challenges ahead to develop new vaccines for difficultto- target pathogens, for which we urgently need a better understanding of protective immunity.
An introduction of a Foreign Animal Disease (FAD) like African Swine Fever Virus (ASF) would be financially devastating. For example, ASF, a highly contagious pathogen with high mortality rates, is a World Health Organization reportable disease that has recently been spreading across Asia and Europe. Control of ASF would likely require mass euthanasia of infected and exposed animals similar to the United Kingdom’s elimination of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).
Processing fluid samples are easily collected under field conditions and provide the means to test more piglets more frequently in a practical way, thereby improving PRRSV surveillance. However, a deeper understanding of the diagnostic characteristics of this newly described sample type is still required.