Abstract
BackgroundNowadays, the most common presentation of PCV-2 is the subclinical infection in piglets after weaning. The success of PCV-2 vaccination is associated with the control of the clinical disease as well as the improvement of production parameters. In consequence, the objective of the present study was to analyse the effect of PCV-2 maternally derived antibody (MDA) levels on vaccine efficacy in piglets vaccinated at three weeks of age with a commercial PCV-2 subunit vaccine. The study was performed analysing a database with 6112 wean-to-slaughter piglets from 4 different European regions.ResultsResults showed that the use of the vaccine was able to decrease the PCV-2 viremia calculated as area under the curve (AUC = 60.29 ± 3.73), increase average daily weight gain (ADWG = 0.65 ± 0.01 kg/day) and reduce mortality (7%) in vaccinated piglets compared to non-vaccinated ones (AUC of 198.27 ± 6.14, 0.62 ± 0.01 kg/day and 11% respectively). The overall difference of ADWG between both groups was close to 30 g per day (p < 0.05), also when they were split for low and high levels of MDA titres. Moreover, the animals with the highest ADWG were observed in the group of piglets vaccinated with high or extremely high antibody titres (0.66 and 0.65 kg/day respectively). Considering only animals with extremely high antibody titres, both study groups performed similar, however there was a numerical difference of 10 g/day in favour of vaccinated piglets. Likewise, lack of correlation between ADWG and MDA was observed suggesting that no maternal antibody interference was present with the tested vaccine because the vaccinated animals grew faster compared to unvaccinated control animals, regardless of the level of maternal antibodies present at the time of vaccination.ConclusionsThe results of the present study demonstrated that the MDA against PCV-2 transferred through the colostrum intake has a protective effect against this viral infection. The vaccine used in the present study (Ingelvac CircoFLEX®) was effective when applied at three weeks of age and was not affected by the level of MDA at the time of vaccination.
Highlights
Nowadays, the most common presentation of Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV-2) is the subclinical infection in piglets after weaning
The objective of the present study was to analyse the effect of PCV-2 maternally derived antibody (MDA) levels on vaccine efficacy in piglets vaccinated at three weeks of age with a commercial PCV-2 subunit vaccine
The same result was observed in all farms used in this study; in all of them Average daily weight gain (ADWG) was significantly higher in the vaccinated animals (Table 1; p < 0.05), with a range of ADWG differences between groups between 20 and 50 g per day
Summary
The most common presentation of PCV-2 is the subclinical infection in piglets after weaning. Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV-2) has been associated with a number of clinical conditions in swine that can cause high economic losses for the pig industry [1, 2]. The most common clinical manifestation of these diseases has been post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), which was first described in Canada in 1991 [3, 4]. The term porcine circovirus diseases (PCVDs) has been used to compile all conditions linked to PCV-2 [5], and subsequently these clinical syndromes were reviewed and some new names proposed [6]. Nowadays the most common presentation of PCV-2 is the subclinical infection (PCV-2-SI) in piglets after weaning. PCV-2-LD and PCV-2-ED have been considered as negligible conditions, since the virus linked with lung and intestine inflammation is usually found within the framework of PCV-2-SD [18, 19]
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