PED Prevention

PED Prevention

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Preventing a bad virus from hitting your farm hogs. There is a very bad virus that is hitting pork producers and it is called porcine epidemic diarrhea or PED. A recent Associated Press article predicted that pork prices will rise after the PED virus, never before seen in the United States, attacks and kills baby pigs. I picked up the phone and called Dr. Bill Barton who is the chief veterinarian for the state of Idaho. "Porcine epidemic virus, we call it PED for short, is caused by a viral organism. PED is different in that it was first time diagnosed in the US on May 2013. It is very infectious and contagious. It causes severe diarrhea in all ages of pigs but typically only causes high mortality in piglets, pigs that have not yet been weaned. The best protection we get is antibodies from the sow, maternal antibodies that have been passed on through the colostrum. The key to preventing this disease from entering another swine premises is bio- security. Bio-security is so critical. We do not know exactly how this is being transmitted yet so people that have pigs need to limit outside access to those pigs, they need to be very careful about where they have been and what they may bring home to their farm, they need to limit exposure to other pigs, just practice all of the good bio-security measures that are available on the Idaho Department of agriculture website.
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