Please call your herd veterinarian.

• When you suspect that you have Sapovirus scours in your barns;
• If you see blisters on a pig or sudden deaths.

Please let us know if you see unusual birth defects.

Sapovirus at 2 quarterly calls (Q4/2022 and now Q1/2023).

There are indications that Sapovirus may contribute to scours in young pigs (suckling, nursery). However, in Canada, we have no test for Sapovirus and no vaccine. Therefore, is unknow how widespread the virus is and how the virus may contribute to scours.

Prairie Diagnostic Services ((PDS) needs samples from clinical cases to develop a test.

Unusual birth defects

In a barn that operates with 2-week batches, 3 batches were affected. The barn had a spurt of high occurrence of very unusual birth defects in pigs: missing hooves, head defects, brain out of eye socket.

In developmental cases of this nature, the specific cause is typically identified in only 1/3 of the cases (both human and veterinary).

Expert opinion was that this was infectious related. The nature of the defects indicates that the infection occurred during the first trimester of pregnancy.