COMPARISON OF TWO IN-FEED MEDICATION STRATEGIES FOR REDUCING ECONOMIC LOSSES ASSOCIATED WITH ACTINOBACILLUS PLEUROPNEUMONIAE

摘要

Actinobacillus pleuropneumonia is the causative organism of the disease described as porcine contagious pleuropneumonia. The presence of this disease imposes a heavy economic burden to the affected herds. The economic losses are derived both from themortality of affected animals and the effect upon growth and productivity. Several strategies have been tried in order to control the disease or at least, to reduce the severity that it might have in some affected populations. The use of bacterins made with inactivated whole bacterial cells is a practice regarded as having variable success. Therapeutic treatment with injectable antibiotics is a widely used resource but it is often regarded having a very marginal benefit due to the fact that it is expensive and labor intensive. A more economical approach to control of respiratory disease is the use of medication in feed for the animals which are at risk of infection. A systematic use of this technique is called metaphylaxis (Castillo del et al 1998). The objective of the work presented here was to compare the efficacy of two antimicrobials that are relatively new using a heavy challenge of live Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae.