Norfolk pig farm is badly suspected of Foot-and-mouth disease
Norfolk pig farm is badly suspected of Foot-and-mouth disease: Announcing the development on Thursday evening the 23rd of June Defra said it was awaiting the outcome of official tests as a precaution a 10 kilometers temporary control zone has been declared around the farm which is located near fell 12 Kingsland details of what the zone means has been published on the governor UK website pdf Defra said following suspicion of vesicular disease in pigs and as a precaution to prevent the spread of disease a 10 kilometers temporary control zone has been declared the premises remains under restriction pending the outcome of official tests details of the restrictions can be found in the declaration.
2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth disease background
Foot-and-mouth disease. Foot-and-mouth disease is the most contagious disease in animals. It is one of the vesicular diseases or the diseases that cause blisters. It affects not only pigs but all cloven-hoofed animals including sheep and cattle. Pigs are unique, they rarely get infected by aerosol, but if they are infected they can shed a tremendous number of virus particles that potentially could infect other animals. The clinical signs are quite variable from species to species, but consistently they have blisters and vesicular.
Foot and Mouth Disease was eradicated from the United States in 1929. But it is still found in more than two-thirds of the world including South America, China, Africa, and the Middle East. Most recently there have been new outbreaks in South Korea, Morocco, Columbia, and South Africa. But currently, it is not found in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Foot and Mouth Disease primarily
demonstrates itself with vesicles and blisters and painful erosions. You might see excessive salivation and lameness, fever. The morbidity is 100%. It is a very infectious virus but mortality, surprisingly, is often quite low. But once they develop the disease they often never come back to full production and of course, trade restrictions and loss of production will be two of the costly features of this Foot and Mouth Disease. What you will find primarily are vesicles on the nose. You can see this blister on this nose right here.
That will often turn into an erosion that will look something like this. And here is a situation where there is both vesicles and erosions on a snout. Lameness is a common problem. You might find lots of pigs in a pen that are developing lameness. You are looking particularly for areas right around the coronary band. And you might find it on the heel or the foot pad. Now you look at this and you
might think, well this is a slat lesion. But if you have 30% of the pigs that are lame, it probably is not a slat lesion unless you have some broken part of your facility. Another characteristic about Foot and Mouth Disease virus is that there are multiple serotypes and this makes it a challenge for trying to design a vaccine similarly to influenza vaccines. So there is a vaccine bank that is in the
process of being developed but the vaccine producers will have to anticipate what type of serotypes is involved. Foot and Mouth Disease transmission has an incubation period of 1 to 14 days. It is shed in all the secretions of the pig. It can be passed by aerosol by great distances. The virus is durable. It can survive outside the host for quite some time. And it can survive a transocean journey
as has been demonstrated by Dr. Dee and others and it can be found in uncooked meat and meat products. One of the big problems is that this is easily confused with Seneca Valley Virus or Senecavirus A. The clinical signs are indistinguishable from Foot and Mouth Disease and we have to assume that it is Foot and Mouth Disease until a diagnosis confirms that it is not. It has been an endemic
disease in the United States in its presence in pigs since 1980’s but there have been a series of clinical outbreaks that some of you are quite familiar with since 2015. It’s been an excellent exercise to prepare the industry for the possibility of a foreign animal
disease but there is a worry that there is some complacency and if you see blisters and you think it is probably just Seneca Virus and I am not going to worry about it, that is not the approach that you should take. So remember to report any animals with blisters and there are a wide variety of viruses that present with blisters. Only a specially trained veterinarian can make a diagnosis and it has to
be with laboratory tests and it will be done with a foreign animal disease diagnostician. Veterinarians get really nervous when they see blisters and so should producers. I would like to thank these individuals for providing the information for this video. And this series of videos has been produced with the help of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health and the University of Minnesota Swine
Extension staff. Thank you for your interest in the Secure Pork Supply.
