Porcine epidemic diarrhea(PED)

Porcine circovirus disease is a contagious disease of pigs that causes diarrhea in piglets caused by infection with porcine circovirus and is common in most pig farms and occurs year-round, with a high infection rate but low mortality (7-20%). Diarrhea can occur in piglets between 1 and 5 weeks of age, but it is mainly characterized by diarrhea in 3-week-old and weaned piglets.

Clinical Symptoms

Diarrhea occurs primarily in piglets as young as 3 weeks of age and rarely in piglets over 8 weeks of age.

It is characterized by white or yellowish, watery diarrhea that lasts for hours or days before recovering.

As a result, infected pigs become dehydrated or have a significant loss of weight gain.

Vomiting is rare, and when rotavirus is infected alone, symptoms are absent or mild, with a mortality rate of about 10%, but when combined with pathogenic colibacillosis or infectious gastroenteritis, symptoms are aggravated and mortality is high (10-50% mortality), and piglet mortality is high when colostrum intake is insufficient or when stresses such as cold are applied, and the younger the piglets, the more severe the symptoms, while sows are rarely affected.

Diagnosis

It is clinically indistinguishable from common epidemic gastroenteritis, epidemic swine diarrhea, colibacillosis, coccidiosis, etc.

Transient diarrhea is seen in adult pigs and sows during outbreaks of epidemic gastroenteritis or swine flu.

For accurate diagnosis, feces or small intestine of piglets with diarrhea should be referred to a specialized diagnostic institution (National Veterinary Inspection and Quarantine Service, provincial animal health laboratory, or other pathogenicity designation institution) for laboratory diagnosis.

Laboratory diagnostic methods include the fluorescent antibody method (frozen sectioning of small intestinal tissue from infected pigs and testing with fluorescent antibodies), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA; detection of viral antigens in diarrheal feces), electron microscopy (observation of viral particles in feces using an electron microscope), and RNA electrophoresis (extraction of viral nucleic acids from diarrheal feces and confirmation by electrophoresis, a rapid and simple diagnostic method).

Other diagnostic methods include polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Prevention and treatment

[Prevention]

The farrowing stalls should be thoroughly disinfected to prevent piglets from being severely infected with multiple viruses and to ensure adequate colostrum intake.

Vaccination should be thorough, and it is recommended to vaccinate with a combination of other diarrheal diseases such as colibacillosis and infectious gastroenteritis rather than rotavirus alone.

Live and inactivated vaccines are available (domestic and imported). Live vaccines are administered orally to farrowing pigs 5 weeks and 3 weeks before farrowing, respectively, and intramuscularly 1 week before farrowing, while inactivated vaccines are administered orally and intramuscularly to farrowing pigs 2-3 weeks before farrowing.

Inactivated vaccines should be given intramuscularly 5 weeks and 3 weeks before farrowing.

If necessary, a four-in-one vaccine for infectious gastroenteritis, colibacillosis, rotavirus infection, and clostridiosis is also available, and a three-in-one vaccine for infectious gastroenteritis, swine epidemic diarrhea, and rotavirus infection will be developed and marketed in the future.

[Treatment]

It is a viral infectious disease with no cure.

Specific management such as keeping pigs warm and dry, administering antibiotics to prevent secondary bacterial infections, giving electrolytes to prevent dehydration, and intraperitoneal injections can be used as countermeasures.