Over the course of history, disease elimination has continued to be a focus of U.S. hog producers. Sometimes hog producers have become better stewards, and sometimes just the change in the production systems has helped elimination, or at least have diminished the occurrences, of diseases that were once common.

One such example is that when hogs were moved indoors and out of dirt lots, the cases of internal parasites in pigs have substantially waned.

Another example of a disease that has been eliminated from the swine herd is atrophic rhinitis, that has "simply disappeared," and of much more significance is pseudorabies, but other countries are still dealing with it. In the case of pseudorabies, elimination was achieved through an industry-wide effort to attack it, but maybe more importantly was the development of a vaccine.

Bridging the historical gap between pseudorabies in the U.S. swine herd, and the current epidemic of African swine fever spreading across Asia, the big difference in the two is that there is currently no vaccine for ASF.

Spencer Wayne and Joseph Yaros from Pipestone Veterinary Services discuss a historical and future perspective on swine disease elimination at the herd, regional and national level in this latest installment in the "Swine Time" podcast.

Source: Pipsetone Veterinary Services, which is solely responsible for the information provided, and wholly owns the information. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.