Animal Health, Production & Management, Environment & Sustainability
Webinar highlights approaches to preventing disease and supporting responsible antimicrobial use.
Disease can affect nearly every aspect of swine production, including animal health, growth, feed efficiency, mortality, treatment costs, and the value of pigs at market. Reducing disease pressure is therefore important not only for protecting herd health and productivity, but also for supporting responsible antimicrobial use.
Swine Innovation Porc recently hosted a national webinar examining disease risk and prevention in modern swine production systems. The webinar featured presentations from Dr. Vahab Farzan of the Ontario Veterinary College and Dr. Gustavo Silva of Iowa State University.
Together, the presentations explored both a specific and costly disease challenge, post-weaning diarrhea, and the broader role of surveillance, biosecurity, and risk assessment in preventing disease.
Understanding post-weaning diarrhea
Dr. Farzan presented findings from a Swine Cluster 4 research project examining post-weaning diarrhea on Canadian swine farms.
Post-weaning diarrhea can result in dehydration, poor weight gain, reduced performance, and mortality. It is most commonly associated with enterotoxigenic E. coli, or ETEC, but the disease is influenced by several interacting factors, including the strain of bacteria, the pig’s immune status and genetics, its gut microbiome, and the farm environment.
The research is examining which strains of ETEC are causing post-weaning diarrhea on Canadian farms, how frequently pigs are genetically susceptible to these infections, and how the gut microbiome may influence the development of disease.
These findings could support the development of more targeted vaccines, genetic selection for disease resistance, and probiotics that promote better gut health.
A key conclusion from the presentation was that post-weaning diarrhea is not a single, uniform disease challenge. Different strains of E. coli may be present across provinces and individual farms, meaning that prevention strategies may need to be tailored to the pathogens and risks found in each operation.
Addressing the disease will likely require a combination of approaches rather than one universal solution.
Taking a systems approach to disease prevention
Dr. Silva expanded the discussion by examining disease prevention from a broader production-system perspective.
The cost of disease extends well beyond treatment. Disease can reduce growth rates and feed efficiency, increase mortality and variation among pigs, and result in more animals falling outside preferred market weights. These impacts can become even greater when several pathogens are present at the same time.
Disease develops through interactions among the pathogen, the animal, and the environment. Effective prevention therefore requires producers and veterinarians to understand how pathogens enter a farm, how they move through the production system, and where the greatest risks exist.
Dr. Silva emphasized that biosecurity, monitoring, surveillance, and targeted interventions all have a role to play. Biosecurity provides the foundation by reducing the likelihood that pathogens will enter or circulate within a herd. Measures such as quarantine, sanitation, controlled access, and careful management of animal, people, and equipment movements can all help reduce risk.
Monitoring and surveillance then help identify which pathogens are present and how they are moving. This allows producers and veterinarians to make more informed decisions about vaccines, medications, and other control measures.
Lessons from PRRS
Dr. Silva used porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS, to illustrate the complexity of disease prevention.
PRRS can spread rapidly, interact with other viral and bacterial pathogens, and increase the severity of respiratory disease. Vaccines can contribute to disease management but provide only partial protection, making biosecurity, surveillance, and herd stabilization particularly important.
The presence of PRRS can also increase the risk of secondary infections and the need for antibiotic treatment. Controlling primary diseases can therefore help reduce antimicrobial use by decreasing the number and severity of infections that require treatment.
This reinforces an important connection between disease prevention and antimicrobial stewardship. Reducing antimicrobial use is not simply a matter of treating fewer animals. It also depends on improving herd health so that fewer treatments are needed in the first place.
Key takeaways
Both presentations reinforced that disease prevention works best when it is informed by the pathogens and risks affecting each farm. No single intervention will address every disease challenge. Biosecurity and surveillance provide the foundation, while vaccines, genetics, probiotics, medications, and other tools can be applied more effectively when they are part of a coordinated strategy.
The webinar also highlighted the close connection between disease control, productivity, and antimicrobial stewardship. By reducing disease pressure, producers can improve pig health and performance while decreasing the need for treatment.
Overall, the session demonstrated that effective disease prevention requires both detailed knowledge of individual pathogens and a broader understanding of how disease moves through production systems.