Mycoplasma hyopneumoniaevaccination at or shortly before weaning under field conditions: a randomised efficacy trial

Abstract

This study assessed the efficacy of two different Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae vaccination programmes in relation to the time of weaning. Eight hundred and twenty-eight piglets were randomly divided into three groups: group V1 was vaccinated three days before weaning, group V2 at weaning (21 days of age) and group NV was left non-vaccinated. Vaccinations were performed using Ingelvac MycoFLEX. After the nursery period, 306 pigs were allocated to fattening unit (F1) and 501 pigs to a second unit (F2). Efficacy was evaluated using performance parameters and pneumonia lesions at slaughter. Statistically significant differences were obtained in F2 where group V1 had a higher average daily weight gain compared to groups V2 and NV for the entire study period (17 and 18 g/day, respectively) and the fattening period (26 and 36 g/day, respectively) (P<0.05). Considering respiratory disease scores for both fattening units, group V1 was the only group where coughing severity did not increase significantly between placement and the end of the fattening period (P>0.05). Between groups, there were no statistically significant differences for the average lung lesion scores (V1=3.44; V2=4.61; NV=4.55, P>0.05) and the prevalence of pneumonia (V1=35.0 per cent; V2=38.0 per cent; NV=41.4 per cent, P>0.05). Overall, vaccination against M hyopneumoniae before weaning provided numerically better performance than vaccination at weaning, but did not reach statistical significance. An influenza outbreak in F1 and the presence of coexisting mixed respiratory infections in both F1 and F2 could have possibly influenced the performance of both vaccinated groups across all measured parameters.

Effects of pre‐farrowing sow vaccination against Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae on offspring colonisation and lung lesions

“…Last but not least, the present study, together with other studies that focused at the breeding sow level, used n‐PCR for detecting the presence of the pathogen in the selected sows and their piglets, 7 8 13 18 32 and not quantitative real‐time PCR techniques. The latter techniques have been used though only in studies that focused at the fattening pig level and have shown that vaccinated pigs had a significantly reduced number of M. hyopneumoniae organisms in their lungs compared with the non‐vaccinated pigs 36 37 . For that reason, future studies investigating the effect of sow vaccination in piglet colonisation, apart from including sows of different parities, they should also employ quantitative real‐time PCR techniques for detecting the presence of M hyopneumoniae in both the samples obtained from the sows and their piglets.…”

Update onMycoplasma hyopneumoniaeinfections in pigs: Knowledge gaps for improved disease control

“…Single vaccination at either 7 or 21 days of age was efficacious in a pig herd with clinical respiratory disease during the second half of the fattening period (Del Pozo Sacristan et al., ). Recent experimental (Arsenakis et al., ) and field studies (Arsenakis et al., ) showed that vaccinating piglets 3 days prior to weaning conferred slightly better results than vaccination at weaning, possibly because of less interference of weaning stress.…”

Antimicrobial susceptibility monitoring of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae isolated from seven European countries during 2015–2016

“…M. hyopneumoniae potentiates the severity of Betaarterivirus suid 1 (International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV, 2019), formerly named porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) (Thacker et al, 1999;Marois-Créhan et al, 2020), and porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) associated pneumonia in pigs (Seo et al, 2014;Marois-Créhan et al, 2020). Commercial vaccines are available but do not prevent colonisation of the respiratory tract (Maes et al, 2008;Arsenakis et al, 2017). Consequently antimicrobial agents are often needed to treat and help control infections (Maes et al, 2018).…”