Prevention and treatment of Japanese Encephalitis in Pigs

Porcine Japanese encephalitis is a zoonotic disease caused by Japanese Japanese encephalitis virus. Mosquitoes are the long-term host and main communicator of the virus, so the epidemic of the disease has obvious seasonality, that is, mosquitoes occur more frequently in summer and autumn.

The disease can infect pigs of different ages, genders and breeds, about 6 months after birth. Generally, there are more sporadic and recessive infections, but no matter whether they are symptomatic or not, they are contagious at the initial stage of infection. Most of the pigs had a sudden onset after infection, with a body temperature of about 41 ℃, depression of spirit and loss of appetite. Pregnant sows mainly caused abortion, stillbirth or premature delivery. Most of the fetus is stillbirth or wooden clothing fetus, or piglets die of spasms within a few days after birth. After abortion, the clinical symptoms of sows were alleviated quickly, and their body temperature and appetite returned to normal, which generally did not affect the mating of the next fetus. Boars often have testicular distension, mostly unilateral, local fever, pain, and begin to fade after a few days, and most of them shrink and harden and lose their breeding ability. Only a few others showed neurological symptoms.

There is no good drug treatment for the disease. Antibiotics or sulfonamides can be used to prevent complications and strengthen nursing care, which can promote rehabilitation and reduce death.

Injecting Japanese encephalitis attenuated vaccine or inactivated vaccine into reserve sows at the age of 5 ~ 6 months, once at intervals of 2 weeks in the first year, and then twice a year, and strengthening mosquito control can effectively prevent abortion in sows.