Quantifying the dynamics of pig movements improves targeted disease surveillance and control plans.

Tracking animal movements over time may fundamentally determine the success of disease control interventions. In commercial pig production growth stages determine animal transportation schedule, thus it generates time-varying contact networks showed to influence the dynamics of disease spread. In this study, we reconstructed pig networks of one Brazilian state from 2017 to 2018, comprising 351,519 movements and 48 million transported pigs. The static networks view did not capture time-respecting movement pathways. For this reason, we propose a time-dependent network approach. A susceptible-infected model was used to spread an epidemic over the pig network globally through the temporal between-farm networks, and locally by a stochastic model to account for within-farm dynamics. We propagated disease to calculate the cumulative contacts as a proxy of epidemic sizes and evaluate the impact of network-based disease control strategies in the absence of other intervention alternatives. The results show that targeting 1,000 farms ranked by degree would be sufficient and feasible to diminish disease spread considerably. Our modelling results indicated that independently from where initial infections were seeded (i.e. independent, commercial farms), the epidemic sizes and the number of farms needed to be targeted to effectively control disease spread were quite similar; indeed, this finding can be explained by the presence of contact among all pig operation types The proposed strategy limited the transmission the total number of secondarily infected farms to 29, over two simulated years. The identified 1,000 farms would benefit from enhanced biosecurity plans and improved targeted surveillance. Overall, the modelling framework provides a parsimonious solution for targeted disease surveillance when temporal movement data are available.

Molecular survey of Cytomegalovirus shedding profile in commercial pig herds in Brazil.

INTRODUCTION: Porcine cytomegalovirus (PCMV) causes rhinitis in both young and older pigs. The present study describes the detection and characterization of shedding profiles of PCMV in nine farrow-to-finish Brazilian swine herds. METHODOLOGY: Tonsil swabs from sows, nursery and grow-finish pigs of nine farrow-to-finish commercial herds (n = 756) were evaluated for the presence of PCMV by PCR. RESULTS: The virus was detected in all herds. Positive samples were concentrated in piglets of ages varying from 40 to 60 days (nursery phase), while none of the sows were positive for PCMV detection. CONCLUSIONS: These findings corroborate the literature regarding PCMV worldwide distribution, and introduce the first report of PCMV shedding profile in Brazilian pig farms.