Bird Flu: Are Pigs the Next Vector?

On the absolute other corner of the country from us, the H5N1 bird flu has now hopped itself into a new species: pigs. To best paint the picture, the operation on which the positive case was found was a small farm with multiple species housed together. They shared water sources and equipment was also used cross-species. The poultry were the first to show clinical signs which was a catalyst to the pigs being tested.

Dr. Megan Niederwerder, executive director of the Swine Health Information Center…

“They had 70 birds on the farm. They were showing clinical signs of illness. They were tested for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and found positive. They tested the animals on-site out of an abundance of caution. The swine on-site were not clinical. They displayed no clinical signs. But one of those pigs - there were five pigs on site - was positive for the virus, and they euthanized those hogs to perform additional diagnostic analysis because this was the first detection in any hog.”

While across the country, it isn’t a stretch to say that some operations here in the Southeast could be vulnerable. For more information on keeping the U.S. swine herd healthy, go to swinehealth.org.