Since September 2019, African Swine Fever has caused extensive mortalities to the pig population of Timor-Leste, where pigs are important for traditional ceremonies and for monetary income. At the time of the outbreak we were developing a sustainable model for smallholder pig raising in Timor-Leste. We added basic biosecurity measures at our nine trial sites and conducted public awareness meetings in trial
sukus
(villages). This approach was largely successful as, despite extensive pig mortalities in the areas, few pigs died at trial sites once measures had been adopted and trial pig mortalities appeared to be linked to social issues that could be reduced through improved public awareness. We believe this approach can cost-effectively reduce the risk of mortalities due to African Swine Fever in settings where smallholder pig raising is very basic and resources limited, but pigs are of great socio-economic importance.
A cross-sectional study of lungs from 1,887 randomly selected pigs from 471 farms from two provinces in the Philippines was carried out to estimate the prevalence of gross pathological lesions, identify potential risk factors and spatial clustering associated with high lung or pleurisy score farms. Lungs from pigs were scored at slaughter. Interviews with the farm managers were conducted to collect information about farm management and biosecurity practices. Of lungs examined, 48% had a lung score above 6 (maximum was 55) and 22% showed pleurisy. When data were aggregated at the farm level, commercial farms were at higher risk of being high lung score farms and high pleurisy farms compared to smallholder farms (P < 0.01). Variables that were associated with an increased risk of a farm being a high lung score farm included the presence of a market pen on the farm, not vaccinating against hog cholera and the presence of another piggery within 500 m. Practicing “feedback” (feeding pig manure, viscera or aborted material to pigs), presence of another piggery within 500 m, and allowing commercial livestock vehicles on farm were all associated with an increased risk of being a high pleurisy farm. Spatial analyses revealed a primary 9.6 km-radius cluster of 39 farms with high lung and pleurisy scores in the southeast of Bulacan province. High lung and pleurisy score farms could be targeted to improve on-farm disease control programs to reduce the risk of respiratory diseases. Clusters of high scoring farms could be prioritized for further investigations or for coordinating intervention efforts.
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