- LONDON (Reuters) - Two body-wasting
pig diseases may have infected up to 40 percent of the English pig herd
since the late 1990s, a veterinary scientist from Britain's Meat and Livestock
Commission (MLC) said on Thursday.
-
- Post-weaning Multi-systematic Wasting Syndrome (PMWS)
and Porcine Dermatitis Nephropathy Syndrome (PDNS) are estimated to have
cost the pig industry some $31 million this year.
-
- ``Last December it was estimated that 20 percent of farms
in England and Wales were affected. We think it's become significantly
more widespread since then,'' MLC veterinary scientist Derek Armstrong
told Reuters.
-
- ``It could probably be double that by now in the English
pig herd. Certainly up to 40 percent,'' he said.
-
- Farmers fear these diseases because they attack sporadically
and have mortality rates of up to 30 percent, while productivity among
the surviving animals is reduced.
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- PMWS occurs clinically in pigs aged 6-14 weeks, while
PDNS commonly occurs between 12 and 14 weeks of age. Scientists have estimated
the syndromes can increase the costs of pigmeat production by up to 14
pence per kg deadweight on affected farms -- enough to move some into debt.
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- NO KNOWN TREATMENT
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- Armstrong said there is no known treatment to eradicate
them and their causes and methods of transmission are unclear.
-
- ``Changing management and improving hygiene can reduce
the effect but it doesn't eliminate the disease,'' Armstrong said, adding
that the conditions can persist in herds for up to three years.
-
- A MLC spokesman stressed however that the pigs do not
have to be destroyed if they contract the disease -- unlike the strategy
for fighting this year's epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease.
-
- ``While some do die, some recover and are then sent on
to market. The (government's) Food Standards Agency has said there are
no known implications for human health,'' he added.
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- General veterinary advice to farmers trying to avoid
the disease includes stepping up biosecurity on farms and avoiding mixing
animals.
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- ``Mixing of pigs from several sources can be associated
with incidence of disease and businesses with multiple sourcing of weaner
pigs appear to be at most risk,'' the MLC spokesman said.
-
- Researchers are looking into the effects of a vaccine
on PMWS, which is spreading far more rapidly than PDNS, and researching
into the possible transfer of immunity from a sow to its piglets, the MLC
said.
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