Assessment of the association between respiratory pathogen burden and the productivity of growing pigs

摘要

Growing pigs in the US face the threat of numerous and concurrent respiratory pathogens including porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), influenza A virus of swine (IAV-S), Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mhp) and porcine circo-virus type 2 (PCV2). Efforts to estimate the production and economic impact of these pathogens is confounded by the multitude of factors that impact productivity and the inability to attribute losses specifically to disease. The concept of pathogen burden has been applied in human medicine to study the association between infectious pathogens and various diseases. The objective of this study was to develop a way to characterize respiratory pathogen burden in pigs and to estimate the association between pathogen burden and the productivity of growing pigs.