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Porcine Circovirus Update |
BY CAMERON SCHMITT, DVM, MS |
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The challenge of circovirus intensifies as
more and more herds are infected. Relief
is in sight, though, as vaccines become
more readily available. Recently we collected
all of our trial data for commercial
vaccine and identified a very significant
advantage to vaccination. Even in a comparatively
healthy pig flow, there is at least a 2:1 return for
the cost of the vaccine.
Just remember, each of the three competing products
should be used at a different dosage.
• CircoFLEX,™ from Boehringer Ingelheim®; one dose
equals a one-cc injection
• Suvaxyn® PCV2, made by Fort Dodge Labs; one dose
equals a two-cc injection
• Porcine circovirus vaccine, made by Intervet; two doses
equals a two-cc injection (this vaccine is under conditional
license currently and has no commercial name)
Some producers have been stretching ffectiveness to the
limit by administering 50% doses, 25% doses, and 10%
doses—not because that strategy necessarily gives the best
protection, but because they are attempting to cover the
largest number of pigs. Pipestone Veterinary Clinic has
data suggesting half-dosing significantly reduces
circovirus losses, but a comparative trial is underway to get
the final word on partial doses versus full doses.
Autogenous vaccines are being produced by a rudimentary
method of homogenizing tissue from infected pigs, purifying
that product to some level, adding an adjuvant, and
injecting the product into pigs. The process is a reaction to
slow ramp up of vaccine production by drug companies,
but from what I’ve seen you can only expect mediocre to
poor results from this method.
Once effective vaccines become readily available, those
drugs will be used as routinely as mycoplasma vaccine and
will most likely be formulated to mix with the corresponding
manufacturer’s mycoplasma product.
Most trials underway examine the effects of sow vaccination.
At this point, we’ve seen very little data regarding
circovirus vaccine in growing pigs.
As an industry, we’re just learning the results of vaccine
on this disease. We’ll accumulate more information in the
next year or two about efficacy, impact on cost of production,
and usage guidelines. Be sure you keep up with these
trends and maybe, if we’re lucky, circovirus will disappear as quickly as it erupted |
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© Copyright 2006 - Pipestone System. All rights reserved |
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