New Zealand: Mystery Pig Disease

3/7/2006 8:06:00 AM

New Zealand Farms Struck By Mystery Pig Disease

WELLINGTON (AP)--New Zealand farmers on Tuesday began testing for known livestock diseases in an effort to identify a mystery illness that is killing piglets on South Island farms, officials said.

Pork Industry Board Chief Executive Angus Davidson said the board had sent samples from about six farms with sick pigs in central Canterbury to an independent laboratory for testing.

"The symptoms include everything from wasting to death," Davidson said.

Industry vets monitoring the farms had been unable to identify the ailment killing young pigs on the farms.

The affected pig farms were all in the same area so the disease was spreading via the wind or through bird or pig movement, he said.

Last week, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and other veterinarians had ruled out the worst exotic diseases affecting pigs, Davidson said, adding the board was expecting results from a range of laboratory tests by the end of the week.

If all tests were negative, farmers might have to consider a diagnosis of post-weaning multi-systemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), a highly contagious viral disease that affects young pigs up to 12 weeks of age, he told domestic news agency, New Zealand Press Association.

"While we are by no means sure of the outcome, we cannot rule out the possibility of PMWS," he said.

The disease does not affect humans, but attacks young pigs causing emaciation, diarrhea and breathing problems, killing up to 40% of them in its early stages.

The disease, first diagnosed on several North Island farms in 2003, has no known cure. There is no simple test to confirm its presence, Davidson noted.

Until the 2003 outbreak, only New Zealand and Australia were known to be free of the highly infectious viral disease.

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