Unusual Clinical Signs and Uncommon Organisms Highlight CWSHIN Fourth Quarter Report

The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network is stepping up its focus on new or uncommon organisms and unusual clinical signs reported by swine practitioners

The Canada West Swine Health Intelligence Network has released its swine disease surveillance report for the fourth quarter of 2022.

CWSHIN Manager Dr. Jette Christensen says much of the discussion focused on unusual clinical signs detected by the practitioners and discussed in the quarterly survey because they have found new organisms that we don’t know very much about or they present different clinical signs than expected.

 “We have to acknowledge, as soon as we talk about these unusual clinical signs or new organisms, that we don’t know much about them”

“The last number of quarters there’s been an emphasis on unusual clinical case stories, unusual organisms that practitioners have seen and that has culminated in the fourth quarter.

“We have to acknowledge, as soon as we talk about these unusual clinical signs or new organisms, we don’t know much about them so the role of new organisms in the disease presentation is mostly unclear.

“It’s only something that we can say, we should look more.

“The same, if we have an unusual clinical presentation of a known disease, something we’ve seen before, we don’t know exactly what factors have made it unusual.

“I want to highlight this discussion about unusual clinical presentations and new organisms because it really helps practitioners and other health experts.

“We have people from the lab sitting in on our calls too to know what is going on in the region, to know if there’s something new popping up and just enables them to be better diagnosticians in the herds.“

Dr. Christensen acknowledges it’s unclear if these new or uncommon organisms have any role in the disease or what is going on but it is of interest to the practitioners to share their experience to be aware that something new might be happening.

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