April 4, 2007

Researchers continue study on treatments for pig waste disease
 

Researchers from the European Union and North America have teamed up to develop a commercially-viable treatments for pig wasting disease called "postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome " or PMWS, a porcine  circovirus type 2 (PCV2)disease which has plagued the pork sector.

A new report on ongoing research, said PMWS is "the most economically important pig disease to emerge in the last 10 years severely affects the livelihood of producers through EU member states and elsewhere."

Tapping money available from the EU's framework programmes on research, EU-funded project FOOD-CT-2004-513928 will be finished in 2009, and has already created an international multidisciplinary consortium to fight the disease, with expertise in epidemiology, pig genetics, pig nutrition, pathology, molecular biology, immunology, vaccinology and virology.

Epizootological surveys have been completed in EU member states and diagnostics have been harmonised and potential vaccines are being field trialled.

According to the report, PCV2 vaccination, to date, appears to be a successful methodology to control most outbreaks. It added that unified studies in molecular biology, immunology, pig nutrition and genetics "are unravelling the mechanisms of disease reproduction following infection of pigs with PCV2."

European producers in the COPA-COGECA federation are working with the National Pork Board in the USA, pig producers in Canada and the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), through the project.