Efficacy of vaccination againstActinobacillus pleuropneumoniaein two Belgian farrow‐to‐finish pig herds with a history of chronic pleurisy

Abstract

The efficacy of an Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae subunit vaccine based on ApxIA, ApxIIA, ApxIIIA and OMP-2 (Porcilis App, MSD) was investigated in two farrow-to-finish pig herds (A and B) affected by chronic pleurisy. In total, 1161 pigs were included. At three weeks of age, the pigs were randomly allocated to non-vaccinated control (NV; n=580) and vaccinated (V; n=581) groups. At 6 and 10 weeks of age, pigs were injected with Porcilis-APP (V group) or adjuvant (NV group). At slaughter (26 weeks), pleurisy and pneumonia lesions were assessed. All pigs were weighed individually at 6 and 26 weeks of age, and average daily weight gain (ADG; g/pig/day) was calculated. Mortality and days of additional treatment (DAT) were registered during the whole experiment. Data were analysed using binary logistic regression or analysis of variance for proportions or continuous variables, respectively. The prevalence of pleurisy and pneumonia was (NV-A=19.3, V-A=7.9, (P=0.000); NV-B=17.9, V-B=0.7, (P=0.000)) and (NV-A=42.4, V-A=21.2, (P=0.000); NV-B=46.7, V-B=19.0, (P=0.000)), respectively. The ADG was NV-A=632±157, V-A=647±91, (P=0.162); NV-B=660±115, V-B=670±82, (P=0.232). The mortality during the experiment was NV-A=5.7, V-A=1.8, (P=0.015); NV-B=2.3, V-B=1.0, (P=0.170) per cent. The DAT was: NV-A=15.04±1.41, V-A=14.95±0.67, (P=0.010); NV-B=21.68±2.43, V-B=16.99±0.62, (P=0.000). The present study showed a significant reduction of the prevalence of pleurisy and pneumonia, and antimicrobial use in V pigs from both herds, and in mortality in V pigs from one herd.

Factors potentially linked with the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in selected bacteria from cattle, chickens and pigs: A scoping review of publications for use in modelling of antimicrobial resistance (IAM.AMR Project)

“…In Canada, vaccines are routinely recommended and applied in livestock production systems (Codes of Practice for the care and handling of farm animals [n.d.]; https://www.nfacc.ca/codes-of-practice). Studies have reported the relationship between vaccination and antimicrobial use (Del Pozo Sacristán, Michiels, Martens, Haesebrouck, & Maes, ; Fertner, Toft, Martin, & Boklund, ; Lava, Schüpbach‐Regula, Steiner, & Meylan, ); however, an assessment of these combined actions on the occurrence of resistance has not been published to our knowledge. The absence of vaccination and other nonantimicrobial use factors at the farm level of the agri‐food chain in this review represents an important data gap in the literature.…”

Reducing Antimicrobial Usage in Pig Production without Jeopardizing Production Parameters

“…In these cases, temporary assistance by an external coach/veterinarian may be helpful. The role of the veterinarian as a coach and the constraints herein, as described above, have been described in ruminant veterinary medicine (Lindberg and Houe, 2005;Smith and Hollis, 2007;Derks et al, 2011;Hakansson et al, 2011) and to a lesser extent in porcine veterinary medicine (Alarcon et al, 2014). The coach in this study was not paid by the farmer.…”

“…To be able to achieve this reduction, it is important to assist and guide farmers in this process, as they are generally aware of the problems and risks, but not sufficiently knowledgeable on the implications on herd level (Visschers et al., ). They are generally also willing to reduce their antimicrobial use but are unfamiliar with alternative solutions such as biosecurity improvements (Laanen et al., ; Postma et al., ; Postma et al., ) and improved immunization through vaccination against infections such as ileitis (Adam, ; Coube et al., ), porcine proliferative enteropathy (Bak and Rathkjen, ), porcine circovirus (Brockhoff et al., ; Aerts and Wertenbroek, ; Coube et al., ; Koenders and Wertenbroek, ) and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (Del Pozo Sacristán et al., ).…”

No Clear Effect of Initiating Vaccination against Common Endemic Infections on the Amounts of Prescribed Antimicrobials for Danish Weaner and Finishing Pigs during 2007–2013

“…However, serotype 6 is present in 26% of SPF herds, serotype 2 in 17%, serotype 7 in 0.4%, and serotype 5 in 0.1% (5). Studies have shown that vaccines against APP can reduce the prevalence of pleuritis (16, 17). Vaccines against APP are the third most frequently used type of vaccines in Danish pig production, representing 8% of the vaccine dosages prescribed in 2013 (10).…”