Influenza A viruses in swine cause considerable economic losses and raise concerns about their zoonotic potential. The current paucity of thorough empirical assessments of influenza A virus infection levels in swine herds under different control interventions hinders our understanding of their effectiveness. Between 2012 and 2013, recurrent outbreaks of respiratory disease caused by a reassortant pandemic 2009 H1N1 (H1N1pdm) virus were registered in a swine breeding farm in North-East Italy, providing the opportunity to assess an outbreak response plan based on vaccination and enhanced farm management. All sows/gilts were vaccinated with a H1N1pdm-specific vaccine, biosecurity was enhanced, weaning cycles were lengthened, and cross-fostering of piglets was banned. All tested piglets had maternally-derived antibodies at 30 days of age and were detectable in 5.3% of ~90 day-old piglets. There was a significant reduction in H1N1pdm RT-PCR detections after the intervention. Although our study could not fully determine the extent to which the observed trends in seropositivity or RT-PCR positivity among piglets were due to the intervention or to the natural course of the disease in the herd, we provided suggestive evidence that the applied measures were useful in controlling the outbreak, even without an all-in/all-out system, while keeping farm productivity at full.
Author Profile
Lapo Mughini-Gras
Institution: Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe), Padua, Italy; National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Centre for Infectious Disease Control (CIb), Bilthoven, The Netherlands; Utrecht University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Utrecht, The Netherlands
City: Legnaro
Country: Italy
Dr. Lapo Mughini Gras is a researcher at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu - RIVM) and at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University. He also works as epidemiologist consultant (distance-work) for the Institute for Animal Health of North-Eastern Italy (Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie - IZSVe). His main research interests are the epidemiology and risk modelling of foodborne and zoonotic diseases at the human-animal interface. His research aims at improving population and ecosystem health, as well as assessing the impact of different public health actions to provide an evidence base for informing policy makers more effectively. After graduating with honors in veterinary medicine from Bologna University in 2008 (with internship at Zaragoza University, Spain) and passing his State board exam, he worked for one year at the unit for urban hygiene and pest management of Bologna municipality. This was soon followed by a PhD (2010-2012) in quantitative epidemiology at the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità - ISS) in Rome, where he worked primarily on foodborne infections, but also on emerging vectorborne and parasitic diseases. During his PhD, he worked for a period of 8 months at the RIVM as visiting research fellow on source attribution modelling of salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis. He is tutoring PhD students and interns and is engaged in several research projects and training schemes. He is member of several scientific societies and acts as referee for a number of peer-reviewed journals. He is bilingual Italian and Spanish and fluent in English and French, with some basic knowledge of Dutch. Since 2010, he has authored and co-authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.