June 13, 2006

New swine disease threatens US hog industry

Two consecutive years of profitable hog farming in the US may now be under threat from a disease re-activated and now lurking in hog farms in the US, according to an industry analyst.

The virus, Porcine Circovirus Type 2, could have the power to affect projections for the hog market this year, according to Glenn Grimes, an agricultural economist who is a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri.

Grimes said hog production was expected to increase gradually but the introduction of circovirus could change all that.

Circovirus can wipe out 30 percent to 40 percent of a hog herd and cause losses of more than US$7 a head.

In any case, even if hog production escapes the disease and increases, the long run of profitable operations would end in November, Steve Meyer, an economist at Paragon Economics, said at the World Pork Expo.

Circovirus have turned up in Iowa hogs in the past two months after breaking out in Canada and North Carolina. Both regions supply pigs to Iowa, according to Dr Darrell Neuberger, swine technical manager for Fort Dodge Animal Health, adding that hog farmers are now rushing to buy circovirus vaccines.

Fort Dodge Animal Health, announced Thursday that it had received a license from the USDA to sell a vaccine called Suvaxyn PCV2 One Dose that the company developed with Iowa State and Virginia Tech universities.

The vaccine is expected in markets at the end of June or early July.

Circovirus was identified in the early 1990s, but has remained dormant until now. It spreads quickly once it infects a herd, transmitting itself through the air and hog urine and feces. The disease causes respiratory distress and weight loss in hogs.