New pig health book points to the role of gilts

A new pig health book, The Guilty Gilt, was presented to the audience at IPVS-ESPHM in Germany. Photos: Vincent ter Beek

A new pig health book aims to draw more attention to the role that gilts can play for pig herd health management. The book The Guilty Gilt was presented to the audience on the 1st day of the global pig veterinary congress IPVS-ESPHM in Leipzig, Germany.

The book was presented at the satellite symposium of Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health. It is authored by Prof Daniel Linhares of Iowa State University in the United States and Dr Marius Kunze, veterinarian at the German-based pharmaceutical company.

Finishers with a pig disease

Co-author Prof Linhares (pictured) addressed the audience, explaining that regularly, finisher pigs can break with disease, even when in the breeding or grower phase perhaps there wasn’t any reason for concern. Giving an example where diagnostics were applied, he said, “Eventually it then turns out to be PRRS, with the infection coming from the sow farm. The sows themselves looked great, but there was silent PRRS.”

In other words, he said, the solution for successful finishing would be to zoom in on controlling the prevalence of viruses in the sow herd. How do we get there? Two key words jumped out in his presentation, being that endemic farms would need incoming gilts that are properly immunised and non-shedding.

Help to monitor herd immunity

The book, Prof Linhares said, could be a good help to monitoring herd immunity and pathogen activity. The Guilty Gilt also contains deep dives with more background information on other pathogens, like, for example, Lawsonia intracellularis, Porcine Circovirus 2 (PCV2) and Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, not coincidentally pathogens for which Boehringer Ingelheim has developed vaccines.

European PRRS awards

During the satellite symposium, 3 European PRRS awards were given to researchers in this area. Albert Finestra Uriol (Lleida University, Spain), Marylène Tignon (Sciensano, Belgium) and Martí Cortey Marqués (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain) each received an award of €25,000 for their PRRS research.

The line-up of the satellite event was completed with presentations of Dr Martin Pfützner, Germany, and Dr Joel Nerem, USA.

Combined IPVS-ESPHM event

The IPVS-ESPHM is a combination of 2 international pig veterinary events. The biennial International Pig Veterinary Society (IPVS) Congress is normally held in a different country anywhere on the planet, but is held in co-location with the annual European Symposium for Porcine Health Management (ESPHM) whenever that country happens to be in Europe. In 2016, the events were also co-organised. At that time the venue was Dublin, Ireland. The Leipzig event in 2024 has attracted over 2,500 pig vets from over 65 countries.

Next year the ESPHM will be held in Bern, Switzerland, and in 2026 the IPVS Congress will take place in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.