MSHMP Funding Renewed by SHIC with Deliverables Outlined in Annual Report

The Morrison Swine Health Monitoring Project, funded by the Swine Health Information Center, submitted its annual report containing updates on their three primary objectives. Dr. Cesar Corzo, MSHMP principal investigator, and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, monitor trends in pathogen incidence and prevalence, conduct prospective monitoring of PRRSV sequence evolution and impact, and support producer participants to increase relevance and deliverables to the swine industry. During their January 2025 meeting, the SHIC Board of Directors renewed MSHMP funding, further enabling the voluntary project designed to survey, detect and facilitate timely response to emerging infectious swine diseases in the US.

Find the industry summary of the MSHMP annual report, project #23-078, on this page.

MSHMP’s first objective is to monitor trends in pathogen incidence and prevalence, focusing on PRRSV, PEDV, PDCoV, Senecavirus A, and central nervous system associated viruses. During 2023-2024, MSHMP developed a method to estimate the cumulative incidence of Senecavirus A in the US breeding herd. Fortunately, the SVA cumulative incidence remained below 2.5%, with most of the years remaining below 0.5%. Another objective was to estimate the time herds required to eliminate PEDV and explored associated factors. A significant reduction in time to consistently wean PEDV negative piglets was observed when comparing epidemic (i.e., 24 weeks) versus endemic (i.e., 13 weeks) stages of the disease in the US. Factors such as previous immunity, herd size, and season when the outbreak occurred were associated with the time to wean PEDV negative piglets.

Conducting prospective monitoring of PRRSV sequence evolution and impact is MSHMP’s second objective. During 2023-2024, MSHMP continued to curate its PRRSV ORF5 database. This database has enabled multiple collaborations, including outbreak investigations and, most recently, the development of the new PRRSV classification system. Thanks to this new classification system, MSHMP was able to identify a new variant of concern PRRSV L1H.18, allowing the team to communicate this finding to the industry in a timely manner. Fortunately, the L1H.18 variant does not seem to have the same transmissibility as L1C.5; however, vigilance remains necessary. MSHMP also developed a mechanism to identify herds with a prolonged time-to-stability post PRRSV-outbreak and is currently beta testing this methodology.

MSHMP’s third objective, expanding participation of producers to allow for all to be involved, continues to show progress. One production system was added in 2023-2024 and enrollment of a second system is expected soon. The MSHMP website continues to be finetuned and updated with the information readers are requesting with over 4,400 views measured in 2024. The most visited section is related to reports, totaling 1,400 views. Interestingly, MSHMP is seeing website visitors that are located around the world, with the US and China as the main consumers. During 2024, the team and collaborators published a total of nine peer reviewed manuscripts which speaks to the relevance and versatility of the dataset.

Altogether, MSHMP provides swine disease knowledge and tools that support crucial information for the industry, particularly as discussions about disease eradication and other health management strategies arise. The comprehensive data and analyses play a vital role in guiding informed decision-making and strategic planning for disease management and eradication efforts for US swine producers and veterinarians.

The Swine Health Information Center, launched in 2015 with Pork Checkoff funding, protects and enhances the health of the US swine herd by minimizing the impact of emerging disease threats through preparedness, coordinated communications, global disease monitoring, analysis of swine health data, and targeted research investments. As a conduit of information and research, SHIC encourages sharing of its publications and research. Forward, reprint, and quote SHIC material freely. For more information, visit http://www.swinehealth.org or contact Dr. Megan Niederwerder at [email protected] or Dr. Lisa Becton at [email protected].