Australian JEV Outbreak Less Severe than One Year Ago

Jan 16, 2023

The Swine Health Information Center reports the Japanese encephalitis virus situation in Australia has eased since this time one year ago.

The Swine Health Information Center's 2022 progress report, approved by the Board of Directors last month, updates the Japanese encephalitis virus outbreak identified in Australia in January of last year.

SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg notes JEV is similar to West Nile virus, an infection that entered the U.S. in 1999 and has since spread throughout North America.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

Through 2022 we were in regular contact with the folks in Australia, both the production folks as well as animal health regulators.That helped us put together a list of research priorities for JEV as well.It's not all just research but it's coordination priorities, it's communication priorities.

We have calls with the Australians scheduled to talk about research and coordination priorities.Currently they are in the midst of another round of very intense weather, a lot of rain.

They're in their summer even though we're in our winter, so for this year so far in this rainy season that they've had, they have had a lot of rain just like they did in January of 2022 but so far they haven't seen the breadth of outbreak in their pig herd that they saw in January 2022.

We're hopeful that there's progress there.They're doing a lot of surveillance and a lot of monitoring and they've done a lot of planning also research and we're anxious to learn their lessons and to see the progress they've made.

Dr. Sundberg says JEV is a significant virus closely related to something that is already in North America so it's important to do everything possible to prevent its introduction and, if that's not possible, to have preparations in place for a coordinated response with animal health, with production and with public health as needed.

Source : Farmscape.ca

Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”