Mr Hoang Son Hai, Chief of Vetarinary Sub Bureau
This year, Dong Nai is the second province in the South area that has witnessed Porcine Reproductive & Respiratory Syndrome (also known as blue-ear disease). At this time, people in the province are urgently preparing for the disease prevention. A journalist of Dong Nai Newspaper had a conversation with Mr Hoang Son Hai, Chief of Dong Nai Veterinary sub-Bureau about methods of Disease prevention. He said:
With more than 1.2 million pigs, if we let the PRRS break out, there would be great damage. Recently, because pork prices are low, most farmers in the province have to reduce expenditure by cutting vaccine for pigs. For that reason, the risk of disease in the area is very high.
Dear sir, in May, in Vinh Cuu commune, there are some PRRS outbreaks, would the situation as in 2010 happen again?
- Compared with 2010, this year the PRRS disease appeared 2 months earlier. In both 2010 and 2012, Vinh Cuu commune is the first area that witnessed PRRS disease. But when the disease appears this yea, hamlets have informed communes to (together with veterinary agencies of communes and provinces) determined the infected areas and destroyed badly diseased pigs, implemented vaccination program, purified breeding facilities and surrounding areas to minimize disease spread. In 2012, lots of farmers and local governments have experiences in disease prevention, so I believe PRRS disease will be better handled than 2010.
Dear sir, sick pigs this time are mostly for flesh and sows, is there any variant of infectious virus?
- According to the test result, the PRRS disease virus this time is highly active like that in 2010 which spreaded throughout the province, With highly-active-virus infected pork, illness will grow faster, and it will become harder to be cured, which means we will have to destroy more pork. Sick pork’s symptom is usually high fever, shortness of breath for 7-16 days and death in 5-15 days later.
Infected pigs are being destroyed
- Since the beginning of the year, PRRS disease has appeared in 12 provinces (10 in the North and Bac Lieu and Dong Nai in the South). PRRS disease appears in some communes of Vinh Cuu district (those are the areas which witnessed the disease in 2010). To prevent disease, Agricultural and Rural Development Department have submitted documents suggesting local authorities to keep implementing vaccination program, close supervision of livestock and slaughtering in the area; encourage people to apply apply biosecurity in livestock process , limit entry and no trading pork with unknown origin.
Witnessing the complicated process of disease, what should farmers in the province do to get it constrained?
- For the last 3 years, the PRRS disease in our country has never ended. That’s why disease prevention movements in commune and town have to be organized proactively and regularly. For example, farmers have to do inoculation against such diseases as: cholera, foot and mouth, blue-ear; and feed them with full nutriment to improve their resistance. Farmers also have to purify breeding facilities, surrounding areas and apply biosecurity in livestock process. In reality, most farmhouse are well applying those processes, apply good against epidemics for pigs so that there is hardly disease in those diaries and ranches. The disease has mostly appeared at farmhouses in bad condition and pigs with insufficient vaccination are easily infected.
What can you say when most of farmers think that the vaccine price is so high while the protection rate is not?
- Before, we had not determined the origin of blue-ear disease, we used unsuitable vaccine which lead to the situation of low protection rate. Now, we have classified PRRS virus as highly active virus and use the vaccine JXA1-R (from China) which can effectively resist the disease. This kind of vaccine has been tested in Dong Nai (2010) and other provinces (2011), the test result is quite good. That’s why, Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development suggest farmers should use this kind of vaccine to prevent PRRS disease. As for price, because this is imported from China, the price is pretty high, about 34-35 thousand per dose. However, it is much more cheaper to buy vaccine for pigs than to destroy infected ones.
Thank you for your information!
Source: Dong Nai Newspaper
