Abstract
Reducing the number of influenza A virus (IAV) infected pigs at weaning is critical to minimize IAV spread to other farms. Sow vaccination is a common measure to reduce influenza levels at weaning. However, the impact of maternally-derived antibodies on IAV infection dynamics in growing pigs is poorly understood. We evaluated the effect of maternally-derived antibodies at weaning on IAV prevalence at weaning, time of influenza infection, number of weeks that pigs tested IAV positive, and estimated quantity of IAV in nursery pigs. We evaluated 301 pigs within 10 cohorts for their influenza serological (seroprevalence estimated by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test) and virological (prevalence) status. Nasal swabs were collected weekly and pigs were bled 3 times throughout the nursery period. There was significant variability in influenza seroprevalence, HI titers and influenza prevalence after weaning. Increase in influenza seroprevalence at weaning was associated with low influenza prevalence at weaning and delayed time to IAV infection throughout the nursery. Piglets with IAV HI titers of 40 or higher at weaning were also less likely to test IAV positive at weaning, took longer to become infected, tested IAV RT-PCR positive for fewer weeks, and had higher IAV RT-PCR cycle threshold values compared to piglets with HI titers less than 40. Our findings suggest that sow vaccination or infection status that results in high levels of IAV strain-specific maternally-derived antibodies may help to reduce IAV circulation in both suckling and nursery pigs.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0210700 |
| Journal | PloS one |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) received funding for this work from the National Pork Board (grant number: 15-026 to MT). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We would like to thank Dr. Joel Nerem from Pipestone Veterinary Services for his help in this study. We also thank Dr. Aaron Rendahl for his help on the statistical analysis. Thanks to Jay Nirmala and My Yang for their help in the laboratory work including the sequencing work. Finally, thanks to all the producers and farm personnel that helped us with this study activities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Chamba Pardo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.