By David
Brown, Agriculture Editor
Electronic Telegraph
TWO
mystery diseases are killing tens of thousands of young pigs on Britain's farms
every year and vets and Ministry of Agriculture scientists admit that they do
not know how to control them.
The wasting diseases, porcine dermatitis
nephropathy syndrome (PDNS) and postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS),
kill up to 40 per cent of affected litters and farmers' losses are expected to
run into many millions of pounds this year. About 100 pigs a week, worth £3,500,
are dying on one farm alone in the south of England. More than 100 farms are affected
in England.
Most of the pigs that survive the diseases, which appear to
destroy the animals' immune systems, are so weakened that they have to be destroyed.
Both illnesses are said to pose no threat to human health. Vets, pig farmers,
scientists and Meat and Livestock Commission experts will meet at the National
Agricultural Centre, Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, on Thursday to discuss how to tackle
the new animal health emergency.
Ian Campbell, the National Pig Association
representative in East Anglia, said: "The problem is that we cannot draw up control
measures for the diseases because we don't know for sure what causes them. There
is no vaccine we can use." |
