A VISIT TO THE OKE- ARO PIG FARM.

 The scourge of African swine fever is trailed with emotional torture and financial losses. The effect of the  virus was more profound with the Covid-19 impact on the economy. The losses recorded on the farm is so high that most of the pens are empty and some farmers have diversified, looking into other agricultural ventures.

   The farm has been decontaminated severally in preparation for restocking of the pens. The biosecurity protocols have also been improved to ensure safety of the animals and the farmers. Training's  demonstrations for the farmers on biosecurity and animal health issues were conducted to keep farmers abreast of new standards in the industry.

   Farmers are encouraged to adopt stringent biosecurity protocols to ensure sustainability and profitability of the venture .

 How to make money from pig farm.

   

Covid-19 and African swine fever(ASF)..

There are some striking similarities between the Covid-19 outbreak and African Swine Fever.

 A different virus has taken over the headlines now ,sharing the spotlight with African Swine Fever dominating the columns online and in the paper, the Corona virus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

 The Corona virus does not affect swine but indirectly affects the swine business. There is one major difference between ASF and Covid-19, this is the fact that ASF leads to the death of virtually all pigs whereas Covid-19 would in most cases not be lethal, meaning that proper health care can play a role as well.

   Learn all you need to  know about ASF from  experts. Join us.

                                     

Lessons learnt with regard to Covid-19 and ASF, lessons learnt are threefold.

First, it’s never too early to start thinking about a virus at the other side of the planet (look at this Danish example).

Secondly, let’s hope the millions pumped into the vaccine business to find a good Covid-19 vaccine somehow lead to a positive spin-off for pig vaccine development too.

 Thirdly, countries reporting many outbreaks are not the ones having the largest problem – they in fact are the ones sharing the most information.

 The striking similarities between Covid-19 and ASF. 1) The sudden panic . 2) The absence of a vaccine now. 3) Reporting of outbreaks.


  Reporting the outbreaks is very important as there is a link between countries reporting and number of cases in such  countries.

There are many websites around the world keeping us posted about the progress of the Covid-19 virus, about the number of people infected, the number of people that died of the virus and mortality percentages, showing interesting maps.

Interestingly, however concrete those numbers appear to be, it’s good to ask questions about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ behind those figures and that there is a parallel with African Swine Fever outbreaks which Pig Progress has been following intensively.


 For example – can people be infected with Covid-19 yet barely notice it? If so, that would mean that the virus could be much more widespread than is actually reported, meaning that the real mortality figure is much lower.

 Extremely interesting in this context I find is the way in which authorities have behaved in recent years with the reporting of ASF outbreaks.

 It is important to understand that accurately reporting ASF outbreaks depends on a gigantic mix of components, just to name a few: 1)Availability of test kits.

 2)Presence of necessary diagnostics infrastructure, including labs.

3)Availability of funding for affected farmers.

 4)Availability of educated manpower to process all information.

 5)Knowledge about the virus.

 6)Sense of responsibility for others.

 7)Cultural attitudes with regard to transparency in case of large problems.

 8)Corruption.

 9)Protection of export interests.

 As regard to ASF, some countries have reported more outbreaks than others, in different frequencies, in different intensity, on different levels as well. Some did not report anything at all – or only occasional outbreaks.

Using the history of reporting , to have a reliable idea as to what numbers might be credible beyond doubt with regard to reporting corona virus, I’d first look at the countries that have been reporting ASF frequently, swiftly and without hesitation.
     Adopted from pig progress.

Mitigating viruses in pig feed ingredients.

Mitigating viruses in pig feed ingredients. Veterinary researchers in the US and Canada have become particularly interested in the role feed has to play in transmission of viruses.

 A team of leading experts dived into the question of how viruses might be shipped around the planet. It was in 2014 that the North American veterinary community – as well as the worldwide feed and pork industries – started to realise that viruses were being transmitted in feed. Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea (PED) broke out in the United States in 2013 and, by January 2014, the disease had arrived in Canada.


 “We figured out quite quickly at that point that the outbreak here in Canada was linked to a certain feed ingredient, from the same feed mill, and soon thereafter a research paper was published by scientists at the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg Manitoba that showed the link was possible”, explains Dr Egan Brockhoff, veterinarian at Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer, AB, Canada and veterinary counsellor for the Canadian Pork Council. “

 African Swine Fever (ASF) came along and since then in the US, Dr Scott Dee, Dr Megan Niederwerder and Dr Cassandra Jones and others have done a lot of work to look into how viruses can tag along in feed ingredients being shipped all over the world.”

 Among the many other studies, Dr Dee (of Pipestone Applied Research at Pipestone Veterinary Services, MN, United States) and colleagues had published an evaluation in 2018 of the survival of livestock viruses in animal feed ingredients that were, and still are, imported daily into the US.

 The study involved simulated transboundary shipping conditions and 11 diseases of global significance: Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Classical Swine Fever, ASF, influenza A, pseudorabies (Aujeszky’s Disease), Nipah disease, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), Swine Vesicular Disease, Vesicular Stomatitis, Porcine Circovirus 2 and Vesicular Exanthema of Swine.


 For six viruses, it was possible to use surrogates with similar genetic and physical properties, but for the others actual viruses had to be used “We found that more viruses survived in conventional soybean meal, lysine hydrochloride, choline chloride, vitamin D and pork sausage casings,” says Dr Dee. “These results also supported data already published on the risk of transporting PEDv in feed.”

Read research here.

Medium-chain fatty acids: Protecting pigs from pathogens.

Global movement of feed ingredients calls for an in-feed disease mitigation strategy.

Feed and feed ingredients have the potential to harbor devastating bacteria and viruses like porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and African swine fever (ASF).


The bacteria and viruses can be transmitted in feed – eventually making their way through the pig’s digestive system and replicating, causing infection.

 The global movement of feed ingredients and commodities increases the risk of introducing disease through ingredients when sourced from areas of active disease pressures.


The risk of global disease transmission reinforces the need for an in-feed mitigation strategy to help guard against disease threats.

 Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs)  have proven to be a useful biosecurity tool, essentially acting as security guards to protect pigs from bacteria and viruses.

The coconut oil  contains a (medium chain fatty acid}begin working in feed, before pigs consume it, to reduce the feed’s pathogen load. After feed consumption, it continues to work inside the animal to weaken pathogens in the digestive tract. Learn how coconut oil in your pig diet can act as a biosecurity tool .

The coconut oil kills bacteria in feed before the pig consumes it and also prevents the replication of bacteria inside the pig.

This is how it kills bacteria:1)Degrade the bacterial cell membrane.

 2)Dissociate into the bacterial cell, causing the pH inside the cell to drop.

 3)Block DNA replication of bacterial cells. In case of viruses with envelopes this is how coconut oil protects the pigs.

"African Swine Fever is a man-made disease".

"African Swine Fever is a man-made disease".If there is one take-home message to report after having spoken to two of the leading scientists on African Swine Fever, it should be that the major threat with regard to the virus is not the virus itself, but how humans deal with it.

 Dr Klaus Depner, head of the International Animal Health Team at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) on the island Riems in northern Germany, has to admit that even he as expert needed some time to understand the disease. How does the virus spread?Wild boars shed the virus mainly when they are very sick and in the final stage of the disease.

When the animals have high fever it’s in their character to stay where they are, and they are certainly not going to walk very far when they feel bad. So what we have here is a virus that is very stable in its environment without fast movement. It neither dies out, nor moves. Undisposed carcasses of infected wild boars remain infectious for a long time in the environment and become a source of infection for healthy animals.


 The human role Still, ASF did spread from the Caucasus until the Baltics and Poland. The question now is how. Soft ticks and insects are unlikely to have transmitted the virus, the scientists say. In fact, they have little doubt identifying about the real reason behind most of the ASF outbreaks: negligence.
Participating in recent ASF monitoring missions in Eastern Europe, Depner has a good idea of what has likely occurred. He says, “Often it was a matter of human misbehaviour. What happened is that infected meat made it to the market.


When many pigs started to die, they were sent to slaughter. Pig prices dropped, cheap meat entered the market and the meat made its way into homes – and into suitcases. This is how the virus dispersed. The virus spread along the main roads, the transport routes. This spread bears a 100% human mark.” more.

AFRICAN SWINE FEVER..

 How to protect your farm from African Swine Fever. How to protect a pig farm from African Swine Fever.(ASF). ASF is all about contact ASF is spread by contact. Far less by the pig breathing the virus in as in Classical Swine Fever, so it should be easier to prevent and control.

Think ‘contact’ in everything you plan to do and subsequently carry out on the premises. The contact is not just pig to pig, but what we humans do by allowing the ASF virus in through contact on the clothing equipment, vehicles, food deliveries, breeding stock and every other visit by an ‘outsider’ to or into your vulnerable farm premises.

 1) Keep everybody off your farm You will need discipline and tact to do this effectively. Quite brutally, you do not know where they have been! So do not risk it.

How to protect a pig farm from African Swine Fever.(ASF).

 How to protect a pig farm from African Swine Fever.(ASF).


ASF is all about contact ASF is spread by contact. Far less by the pig breathing the virus in as in Classical Swine Fever, so it should be easier to prevent and control.

 Think ‘contact’ in everything you plan to do and subsequently carry out on the premises. The contact is not just pig to pig, but what we humans do by allowing the ASF virus in through contact on the clothing equipment, vehicles, food deliveries, breeding stock and every other visit by an ‘outsider’ to or into your vulnerable farm premises.

 1) Keep everybody off your farm You will need discipline and tact to do this effectively. Quite brutally, you do not know where they have been! So do not risk it. The only permissible person as routine is the pig veterinarian and of all people he should take the necessary precautions.

Even so, do not allow his vehicle on to the farm. Have a parking spot outside the perimeter and if necessary, help carry his equipment in for him.

 There will be skilled artisans of course, electricity, roofing, plumbing, etc. who will need access. Keep their vehicles off the farm too and make it clear beforehand (for the sake of good relations) that they will have to use farm overalls and footwear and need their equipment mist-sprayed.

 2)An unbreakable farm perimeter defense. For the delivery of replacement stock (semen is safer than live pigs) and the collection of finished pigs, have designated areas on or just outside the farm perimeter.

On no account allow ‘helpful’ drivers (offering to assist with the loading) on to the premises. The same with bulk or bagged food and supplies.

 As soon as you can, set up food reception bulk bins using your own inlet hoses, not theirs; a covered site for bags and other bulky deliveries. All 3 on the farm boundary, for later inward transmission by your own staff, never theirs.

PIG'S GENETIC CODE ALTERED TO TACKLE AFRICAN SWINE FEVER.

An advance in the fight against a deadly virus that affects pigs has been made by researchers who used advanced genetic techniques to produce pigs that are potentially resilient to African Swine Fever -a highly contagious disease that kills up to two-thirds of infected animals. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute have used gene-editing techniques to produce pigs that are potentially resilient to African Swine Fever. The team have changed five letters of the animals' DNA code to give them a variant of a gene that is usually carried by warthogs. It is the first time researchers have successfully swapped alleles in an animal's genetic code using gene editing. African Swine Fever is spread by ticks. When standard farmed pigs are infected, they quickly become ill and die, but warthogs and bush pigs show no disease symptoms when infected.The team used advanced genetic techniques to produce pigs that are potentially resilient to African Swine Fever -- a highly contagious disease that kills up to two-thirds of infected animals.The new pigs carry a version of a gene that is usually found in warthogs and bush pigs, which researchers believe may stop them from becoming ill from the infection. The research is focused on one of the pig genes associated with African Swine Fever Virus infection called RELA. The gene causes the immune system to overreact with devastating effects.Warthogs and bush pigs carry a different version of the RELA gene from that found in farmed pigs. Scientists believe that this variant -- known as an allele -- may dampen their immune response and explain why they are more resilient to African Swine Fever. This latest study marks the first time researchers have successfully swapped alleles in an animal's genetic code using gene editing. Source; University of Edinburgh.

"African Swine Fever is a man-made disease"

Dr Klaus Depner and Dr Sandra Blome, of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut in Germany have new insights about the virus , they have studied cases and are of the opinion that “Most problems are a matter of human misbehavior.”

 African Swine Fever, it should be that the major threat with regard to the virus is not the virus itself, but how humans deal with it.Trials at the FLI showed that there is no difference in the way the ASF virus affects wild boars or domestic pigs.

Logically, one of the major questions that the researchers had when ASF was introduced in 2007 in the Caucasus was: how would the virus spread and behave in wild boars? Depner: “Essentially, we had two hypotheses.

The first one was that the disease in wild boars would die out due to the high virulence of the virus.”Blome: “Roughly, the animals get sick four days after infection.”Depner: “Usually death will follow within three to six days, .

This means that almost all infected hosts will die very quickly, which means that the virus will cease to exist very soon because it kills its host.

In that case, we would not have to worry, ASF would do its job extinguishing itself.”Blome, however, points to the fact that ASF virus is not that contagious. High viral loads are found in blood, but saliva or faeces contain less virus:

“We overestimated the contagiousness of African Swine Fever. The disease moves very slowly. When looking at affected wild boar populations, most of them have not been significantly reduced. The virus doesn’t spread that quickly at all.” Blome adds, “Wild boars shed the virus mainly when they are very sick and in the final stage of the disease.

When the animals have high fever it’s in their character to stay where they are, and they are certainly not going to walk very far when they feel bad.”Depner: “So what we have here is a virus that is very stable in its environment without fast movement. It neither dies out, nor moves.

 Undisposed carcasses of infected wild boars remain infectious for a long time in the environment and become a source of infection for healthy animals.” The human factor; its usually a case of human misbehavior. What happened is that infected meat made it to the market.

When many pigs started to die, they were sent to slaughter. Pig prices dropped, cheap meat entered the market and the meat made its way into homes – and into suitcases. This is how the virus dispersed.

 The virus spread along the main roads, the transport routes. This spread bears a 100% human mark.” Humans can be identified as having aggravated the situation ever since as well.

 Since wild boars have often been thought to be spreading the virus, in several countries attempts were launched to eradicate them – Poor bio security protocols have also been identified as cause of spread of the virus.

Bio security measures include the following; Changing clothes, working hygienically and making sure nothing from the outside reaches the inside.

 Story credit; world poultry.