CWSHIN Raises Alarm Over Severe Lung Disease

The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network is advising pork producers to be aware of a rare infection that can result in the condemnation of pigs at slaughter

by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online

Severe lung disease is one of the conditions identified in the Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network disease surveillance report for second quarter of 2020.

CWSHIN Manager Dr. Jettte Christensen, reports there was one case identified in the region in the second quarter.

“It can be as little as 12 hours from the time the pigs are exposed to the bacteria until they have these very severe signs”

 

“It was a batch of good-looking pigs. They didn’t show any signs when shipped to slaughter or even arriving at the slaughter at the antemortem inspection, so when they look at the pigs before they get slaughtered.

“However, once they got slaughtered, it was up to 10 to 11 percent of a batch that was condemned due to lung lesions at the slaughter. It was followed up by laboratory diagnosis on these lung lesions and they found that it was APP, so Actinobacillus pleuropneumonia, that caused this disease.

“In the barn, if you see APP, it’s usually with heavy breathing difficulty, sitting pigs with open mouths that are pumping their flanks, they can have blue ears or they could die suddenly without any substantial signs before that but often with bleeding from the nose.

“The reason that you can get into this situation where you ship perfectly good-looking pigs and then they turn out to be condemned at slaughter is that the incubation period can be very very short.

“It can be as little as 12 hours from the time the pigs are exposed to the bacteria until they have these very severe signs. That means you can ship healthy pigs and then, when they get slaughtered. they can be condemned.”

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