Farmscape for August 29, 2018

A Swine Health Information Center Research Project is focusing on mitigating any risks that might be posed to pigs from feed contaminated with the virus responsible for Foot and Mouth Disease.
Research being conducted on behalf of the Swine Health Information Center is examining the risk of pigs contracting Foot and Mouth Disease through feed.
Swine Health Information Centre Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg explains, in previous research the concept of transporting viruses through different feed components was demonstrated.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Centre:
Under the conditions of transport from China and from eastern Europe, we showed that different viruses are able to survive in those feed ingredients during that time.
We didn't show though, concept of transmission and being able to infect pigs with those viruses as they could be transported so that's part of this project.
We took FMD, which is the highest priority virus in the swine disease matrix, and asked USDA Ag Research Service, the ARF, on Plumb Island to look at the infectivity of FMD in feed to pigs given normal feeding behavior.
FMD can infect pigs if you inoculate them with FMD orally but we don't what dosage is needed in feed, in feeding behaviors to be able to do the same thing and that's part of what we're going to be looking at.
If we can infect pigs with a certain does of FMD we're going t look for the possibility of different feed additives that could act as mitigants to decrease that dosage that might be in the feed below an infective dose and finally we're going t look at the FMD survivability over time in some feed ingredients.

Dr. Sundberg says FMD is one of the most studied viruses in the world but nobody has looked at the infectivity of the virus in normal feeding behavior.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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