Abstract
BackgroundThe United States swine industry was first confronted with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) in 2013. In young pigs, the virus is highly pathogenic and the associated morbidity and mortality has a significant negative impact on the swine industry. We have applied the IDEA model to better understand the 2014 PEDV outbreak in Ontario, Canada. Using our simple, 2-parameter IDEA model, we have evaluated the early epidemic dynamics of PEDV on Ontario swine farms.ResultsWe estimated the best-fit R0 and control parameter (d) for the between farm transmission component of the outbreak by fitting the model to publically available cumulative incidence data. We used maximum likelihood to compare model fit estimates for different combinations of the R0 and d parameters. Using our initial findings from the iterative fitting procedure, we projected the time course of the epidemic using only a subset of the early epidemic data. The IDEA model projections showed excellent agreement with the observed data based on a 7-day generation time estimate. The best-fit estimate for R0 was 1.87 (95% CI: 1.52 – 2.34) and for the control parameter (d) was 0.059 (95% CI: 0.022 – 0.117). Using data from the first three generations of the outbreak, our iterative fitting procedure suggests that R0 and d had stabilized sufficiently to project the time course of the outbreak with reasonable accuracy.ConclusionsThe emergence and spread of PEDV represents an important agricultural emergency. The virus presents a significant ongoing threat to the Canadian swine industry. Developing an understanding of the important epidemiological characteristics and disease transmission dynamics of a novel pathogen such as PEDV is critical for helping to guide the implementation of effective, efficient, and economically feasible disease control and prevention strategies that are able to help decrease the impact of an outbreak.
Highlights
The United States swine industry was first confronted with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) in 2013
The PEDV circulating in North American swineherds is highly pathogenic especially in non-immune, suckling piglets in which it causes watery, hemorrhagic diarrhea and sometimes vomiting with up to 100% morbidity creating a significant economic impact for the swine industry [6,7,8,9]
Descriptive epidemiology The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture (OMAFRA) dataset describes 58 Ontario swine farms that were confirmed to have tested positive for PEDV between January 1st, 2014 and April 30th, 2014 (Fig. 1)
Summary
The United States swine industry was first confronted with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) in 2013. The virus is highly pathogenic and the associated morbidity and mortality has a significant negative impact on the swine industry. The PEDV circulating in North American swineherds is highly pathogenic especially in non-immune, suckling piglets in which it causes watery, hemorrhagic diarrhea and sometimes vomiting with up to 100% morbidity creating a significant economic impact for the swine industry [6,7,8,9]. Data from some regions supports the hypothesis that infectious PEDV contaminated spray-dried plasma; a component of some swine feed products has been another route by which transmission of the virus has occurred [14, 15]
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