The Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center reports, despite a spike in the number of cases of a particular strain of PRRS in the Midwest, the prevalence of PRRS remains in line with what had been expected. As part of its March enewsletter, the Swine Health Information Center has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease surveillance reports.
Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg reports PRRS continues to be a seasonal disease and we have seen an increase over the winter but we're starting to see that level off and expect numbers to go down within the next couple of months.
Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
One of the things of note for the statistics is that we haven't seen in 2021 a big spike in PRRS relative to what we had in 2020. It's not unexpected that we have this increase during these colder months but the increase is not out of line with historical values and what we've had before.
There is though one particular strain, one particular linage that has some regional outbreaks. Strain 144 with the linage 1C has caused very severe outbreaks in the Midwest and that has been a very severe issue for those people that have it.
It isn't widely spread; it is rather regional and it hasn't caused the overall picture of PRRS to spike above what would be normal. That's a hot linage that's happening in the Midwest, that has happened in the Midwest since December but it isn't enough that it causes the bigger picture of PRRS to be out of line with what was expected.
Source : Farmscape