A swine virus that is often fatal to piglets has infected farms in 43 of 92 of Indiana’s counties, including Wabash.
That was the word from Indiana State Board of Animal Health Dr. Bret Marsh, who reported that Wabash County has been diagnosed with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PED), for which there is no vaccine.
Randy Curless, owner of Wabash’s Liberty Swine Farms, confirmed Marsh’s diagnosis.
“Our farm got hit with it the first week of January,” Curless told the Plain Dealer. “We’re on the backside of it now, but it’s a situation where it’s 100 percent fatal for anything less than a week old and for anything born for about three weeks after that.”
Curless explained that while PED usually spares older pigs, his farm was still hit hard.
“It’s a situation where you lose three to four weeks of production,” he said. “We probably lost around 2,400 pigs.”
Marsh, a state veterinarian, said that the mortality rate is so high among younger pigs because they are too weak to combat the diarrhea and flulike symptoms. He added that the virus was rampant in the winter months but is not expected to move as quickly in the spring and summer.
“It’s been in Wabash County for a while, but right now we just a few random sick pigs here and there,” Curless said. “I know of at least one other farm it hit. They lost quite a few pigs.”
Dr. Darryl Ragland, professor of food animal production medicine at Purdue University, said he believes PED was more rampant in the winter due to transportation trucks infected with germs.
“We believe this disease often spreads when trucks haul these pigs from farm to packing plants,” he said. “The risk is fairly high if the truck isn’t clean.
“It’s been a hard winter, and it’s hard to properly disinfect anything outside in the cold,” he continued. “If you’re not able to clean your truck inside a heated building, it’s tough.”
Ragland and Marsh said the key to preventing the disease from spreading is biosecurity, which includes precautions such as changing clothes and showering between contact with groups of pigs, restricting movement on and off the farm and limiting people on a farm to workers.
“We know that’s one way to prevent the virus from spreading,” Ragland said. “One other way it might be infecting animals is through aerosol. If wind and temperature conditions are right, viruses can move from one site to another.
“We’re not sure if that’s the case for PED, but we’re working to find out.”
Curless added that another culprit researchers are investigating is contaminated seed ingredients.
“It’s extremely potent and only takes a little bit of the virus to infect a herd,” he said. “It just gets in so easily.”
Marsh said that the disease was first diagnosed in the U.S. last May, after first being diagnosed in Europe in the 1970s and in Asia shortly thereafter. He said that Indiana had some of the first reported cases in the country.
“Farmers should call the Board of Animal Health if they’re seeing symptoms consistent with PED,” he said. “This lets us know what we’re dealing with and helps us focus on the right disease.
“Fortunately, we have often used diagnostics to rule out PED.”
Marsh added that he hopes the warmer weather will give him a chance to regroup.
“This gives us a chance to learn more about this virus and prepare for next winter,” he said.
Although the PED storm may be calming in many areas, Ragland believes it is still spreading.
“As it pertains to state of Indiana, I can tell you that the Board of Animal Health updates their map of infected counties every week and counties are still being added,” he said. “It’s still spreading.”