Concurrent swine erysipelas and Clostridium novyi infections associated with sow mortality in outdoor sows in Kenya.

A sudden increase in sow mortality was reported from a large outdoor pig-breeding unit in Kenya. The sows showed pyrexia and diamond shaped to confluent skin lesions ante-mortem. Gross pathological examination of the carcases was performed and organ samples (heart, liver, kidney, spleen, mandible lymph nodes) were sent for further diagnostic investigation. Based upon the clinical, gross- and microscopic-pathological signs, bacteriological findings and toxin testing, concurrent infection with Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae and Clostridium novyi was diagnosed as the cause of the sow mortality.

[Associated vaccination of pigs against swine fever, erysipelas and Aujeszky's disease]. / Asotsiirano vaksinirane na praseta sreshtu chuma, cervenka i bolestta na Aueski.

Tested was the simultaneous vaccination of pigs against swine fever, swine erysipelas, and Aujeszky's disease. Parallel to this experiment a second group of test pigs were treated with each of the three vaccines at twenty-day intervals. The effect of vaccination was assessed through clinical observations with the test groups and by challenging part of the animals with virulent strains of the swine fever and erysipelas agents. It was found that the successive application of the three vaccines at 20-day intervals (at the age of 50, 70, and 90 days) could induce immunity that lasted for a longer period than the immunity resulting from the simultaneous treatment at the age of 90 days. In order to protect the pigs for sure up to the end of the fattening period a revaccination against swine fever with the simultaneous use of the vaccine against swine erysipelas in both cases was necessary.