June 18, 2014

PED outbreaks in Dominican Republic kill 26,000 pigs

The Dominican Republic has been hit by seven outbreaks of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) since November 2013, resulting in the deaths of more than 26,000 piglets.

The veterinary authority sent a report to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) which outlines seven outbreaks of PED in several districts across the centre of the country starting between November 2013 and May 2014.

A total of 308,177 pigs were affected, of which 39,042 showed symptoms and 26,070 died - all reported to be piglets less than two weeks old. 20,691 of the mortalities were on one farm alone in the Santiago region.

The report adds that the surveillance system of the Directorate of Animal Health was implemented following a clinical report of diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration that resulted in the death of piglets less than 15 days old at different farms.

Samples were sent to the centre for animal diseases of the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in the US to confirm by real-time RT-PCR, isolation and sequencing the causal agent of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED).

On March 2014, in a preliminary report, the USDA confirmed, by real-time RT-PCR and sequencing, that samples submitted were similar to the PED virus reported in the US.