December 4, 2014

 

Hawaii gets its first-ever PEDv outbreak

 

 

Hawaii has confirmed its first outbreak of a deadly Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv).  The outbreak was discovered November 20 on a farm on Oahu, the state's most populous island.

 

Department of Agriculture officials in Hawaii are wondering how the pig virus that emerged in the continental USA last year found its way to an island thousands of miles away.

 

Farmers and the US government have been working to contain PEDv, since it was first detected in the US in the spring of 2013. The virus has killed at least 8 million pigs, roughly 10% of the US hog population.

 

The virus was previously found in parts of Asia and Europe, but it is not known how it came to the US.

 

Hawaii had toughened import requirements for live pigs in July in a bid to prevent the spread of PEDv, banning infected hogs and requiring tests for PEDv prior to shipping.

 

State officials do not know how PEDv arrived on their shores and are testing animal feed from the infected farm to try to determine whether it may have transmitted the virus, says acting State Veterinarian Isaac Maeda.

 

"We live out in the ocean," Maeda says. "A lot of things you see on the continental US, we don't see out here."

 

The outbreak occurred on a farm with about 150 pigs, and about 25 percent died, according to Hawaii's agriculture department. Veterinarians sent samples from the farm to the Kansas State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which confirmed the PEDv infection.

 

"It was surprising because it was a long distance from your traditional swine channels," says Tom Burkgren, executive director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.

 

The farm did not use feed containing porcine plasma, which has been suspected of spreading PEDv, Maeda says.

 

Researchers have previously established that PEDv in the continental US can spread from pig to pig by contact with manure, which contains the virus. It can also be spread from farm to farm on trucks.

 

Hawaii quarantined the infected farm and stopped the movement of pigs on the west side of Oahu to contain the outbreak.