Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea is a viral swine disease caused by a coronavirus which affects the lining cells of the intestines causing severe diarrhea and dehydration in affected animals (Changhee et al.’s 2015), older hogs infected with the virus lose weight while newborns die within five days. Although this disease cannot be transmitted to human beings and does not contaminate food supply, it has a great economic effect on agriculture mainly felt through the high prices of pork products, only year since the disease was first identified in the US the disease has spread to over 25 states with over 25000 positive cases reported. In this paper, I have discussed the causal organism, the animals affected, diagnostic tests, and its treatments and containments procedures.
A field study was carried out on a Montana farm where it was observed that a number of pigs were wasted and none of their suckling piglets had grown to maturity they had been attacked by a new disease. This disease affected pigs only, it has a mortality rate of up to 100 percent for suckling piglets, emaciates old pigs reducing their pork products quality while the disease is immune-compromising which increase cost of management.
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In the US the disease was recorded first on 5th May 2013 in Indiana and later similar cases appeared in Canada before in the year 2014, since then the disease has spread to over 25 states. On 5th of January 2014, the Ohio animal diagnostic laboratory discovered a mutant Strain of PEDV with few deletions, insertions and mutations variations (Huang et al.’s 2015). Since the disease was recorded in the US it has caused over one million piglets’