Dr. Dave Baumert, senior technical services veterinarian for Zoetis Pork, spoke to The Pig Site’s Sarah Mikesell at World Pork Expo about the value of a dual disease elimination program for PRRS and Mhp.

PRRS and Mhp are a drain to pork producers when it comes to health, performance, productivity and efficiency. Tackling both diseases simultaneously can be challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to rid your operation of these potentially devastating diseases.

Can you start off by helping us first understand what a disease elimination program is exactly, and how is it different from a disease control program or an intervention?

One of the best ways to explain the difference in these varying levels of disease management is to look at the intensity of the program and to look at the time frame to get to an end point or the horizon.

A disease intervention is simply put, “we need to put out the fire today.” We need to manage the disease that's going on right now, usually with a simple program that’s targeted at what's happening today.

A disease control program is a little more of an intensive program. Like the name implies, we're going to control the disease for a little bit longer time frame. In addition to managing the disease in today's pig population with a good or effective disease control program, we're also going to eliminate the effect of the disease, the animal welfare implications and the cost of disease for groups of pigs down the road. We won't eliminate the disease, but we'll certainly manage the negative effects for groups of pigs coming in the future.

A disease elimination program certainly has a longer time frame. We're often talking many months or perhaps a year to truly eliminate a disease. The advantage of a more intense program with a longer time frame is that if we truly eliminate an infectious bacterial or viral agent from a swine herd, then for all future groups of pigs coming out of that sow herd and/or the sow herd itself, we don't expect that particular strain of disease to ever be a problem again in the future. It is a long-term horizon, but a long-term benefit also.

Are there some characteristics that disease elimination programs have in common?

Yes, most of our disease elimination programs include a component that utilizes an antibacterial or anti-infective agent, particularly if the disease we're trying to eliminate is a bacterial agent. Often our disease elimination programs will use vaccines. Whether we're dealing with a virus or a bacterial agent, we want to use vaccines to build a strong, robust immune system within the pig.

We also will use variations or changes in pig flow, meaning the movement of pigs within the herd to protect our naive or negative pigs from becoming part of the disease problem.

Finally, time is important in a disease elimination program because we need time for the herd to stabilize and reach a uniform disease status. It's easier to manage a disease if all animals are at a uniform state as opposed to highs and lows scattered throughout the herd. Our vaccines need time to develop that strong immune response that we're looking for.

What's just as important to remember is that there are some unique characteristics of different disease programs. The specific bacterial or viral agent we're dealing with is important because it adds unique characteristics to a successful elimination program. Other characteristics of the sow farm such as location, biosecurity level and availability of new gilts after a disease elimination program also should be factored in. Then, characteristics for the farm itself, such as management or operational capabilities and what they are capable of should be considered because a good disease elimination program needs to work within the farm itself.

In terms of swine respiratory disease, prevalence and impact on performance and economics, how do Mhp and PRRS compare?

PRRS virus and Mhp are certainly ranked #1 and #2 on our list of potentially devastating but certainly financially important swine respiratory diseases. About 10 years ago, Dr. Derald Holtkamp published a report showing that PRRS virus was costing the U.S. swine industry $640 million¹ a year just in lost productivity. On top of that, there's also about $475 million¹ a year to manage PRRS virus in additional veterinary care and costs and biosecurity measures that producers had to take. Given those two sums together, we're talking more than $1 billion dollars a year that PRRS virus continues to cost the U.S. swine industry.

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae is a bacterial infection and it doesn't cause the extreme mortality or extreme death loss that PRRS does, but it's still quite expensive. The cost of managing Mhp involves pigs that have a slower average daily gain, poorer feed efficiency and additional medical costs. Managing Mhp will easily add $2 to $5 per pig² to the cost of feeding a Mycoplasma-infected pig versus a Mycoplasma-negative pig, so it adds significant cost.

As a swine producer or veterinarian considering a PRRS-elimination program, are there advantages to implementing an Mhp-elimination program at this time?

When we try and manage a dual elimination program like PRRS and Mhp, there certainly are advantages. Every disease elimination program requires management changes that are not routine production practices. Disease elimination programs have negatives or downsides to them. By combining two elimination programs together or a dual elimination, we can shorten both the time frame and the amount of hassle that the sow farm has to go through to complete an elimination program.

It is important when we start talking about multiple elimination programs that the two programs work well together. We want to ensure that the management changes for plan A don’t conflict with plan B. They need to work together because our goal at the end of the day with multiple disease elimination programs is to reduce the impact or disruptions to the sow farm.

About 10 to 12 years ago, we had simple PRRS-elimination programs that we could complete in six months. If we were to go to the producer and ask them to perform a Mycoplasma elimination program at the same time, we would ask them to extend the herd closure an additional two months to manage and eliminate the Mycoplasma issue. But we got very little cooperation from producers because we were asking them to extend the complicating issues an additional two months. Thus, adding a Mycoplasma elimination a few years ago was not very well accepted.

What has changed is that the PRRS strains that we see today often require a 10- to 12-month herd closure program to be successful. The PRRS viruses we now see are more resilient, tougher and longer lingering, and they take longer to eliminate. So, when we have a sow farm that has begun a PRRS-elimination program and they foresee a 10- to 12-month herd closure period, we now approach those same producers and say let's put an Mhp-elimination program in on top, recognizing that an Mhp-elimination program still only takes eight months but now it fits well inside of their projected 10- to 12-month PRRS-elimination program. So, the two fit very well together now.

How does a swine producer get started to implement this type of dual disease elimination program?

The first place to start would be for the producer’s herd veterinarian or their health management team to confirm the presence and the prevalence of both PRRS and Mhp in the swine herd. Zoetis has a program called STOMP PLUS^®. It's our diagnostic consultation program where we can help producers go through the diagnostic questions and then use that information to outline the diagnostic steps at the lab.

The next step would be to set out a plan. Zoetis has a program called Mhp Guardian where we have laid out steps that create a roadmap to follow for Mhp elimination. Working with the producer’s veterinarian and/or the production system’s health team, Zoetis technical service veterinarians can design a dual roadmap where we cover the points needed for both a PRRS elimination and Mhp elimination (see example roadmap below).

The last step which really falls on the producer is they need to understand their operation so that we can work with the unique characteristics or time points of the roadmap to ensure it works with their specific system.

What is the most important thing swine producers and veterinarians should take away from our discussion?

The takeaway is that, I hope producers recognize that there are both logistical and economic reasons to do dual eliminations. We can eliminate more than one disease at a time, and in this case Mhp and PRRS eliminations are very realistic. We also want producers and veterinarians to recognize that Zoetis has technical services teams with experience in disease elimination. We have programs like STOMP PLUS and Mhp Guardian that offer a roadmap for disease eliminations, so we can work with them from beginning to end until we reach a successful outcome.

Elimination really should be the goal for a number of our swine diseases. Life is just so much simpler if we can care for healthy pigs as opposed to battling diseases day in and day out.

The animal health information contained herein is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace discussions with an animal healthcare professional. Testimonials represent individual experience only, and the experiences and opinions herein may be unique to the patient. Individual results may vary, considering the unique characteristics of the patient.

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¹Holtkamp, D. J., Kliebenstein, J. B., Zimmerman, J. J., Neumann, E., Rotto, H., Yoder, T. K., Wang, C., Yeske, P., Mowrer, C. L. & Haley, C., (2012) “Economic Impact of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus on U.S. Pork Producers”, Iowa State University Animal Industry Report 9(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ans_air-180814-28

²Yeske, 2016. Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae elimination, 2016 AASV Annual Meeting Proceedings, pg. 376-380.