Lawsonia Intracellularis: A Constant Challenge to Modern Swine Production

Abstract

Lawsonia intracellularis (LI) is an obligate intracellular proteobacteria that causes porcine proliferative enteritis. The disease affects mainly piglets and has an important role in economic losses in the swine breeding chain, chiefly because it is usually hardly noticed swine herds. Being a disease with cosmopolitan distribution it triggers reduction in average daily gain of weight and feed conversion efficiency. Its transmission is closely linked to the presence of infected animals in the herd and direct contact between contaminated faeces and susceptible hosts. A striking feature of LI is the ability to proliferate and stay hidden inside intestinal cells, which protects the agent from inflammatory reaction. Thus, all these peculiarities are aggravating to perform direct diagnosis and subsequent treatment effectiveness.