ODA news release. Animal health officials in Oregon and other states are keeping busy as they deal with Seneca Valley Virus, an emerging disease showing up in swine. The virus itself is not necessarily the problem, but since its symptoms mimic the ultra-serious food and mouth disease (FMD), each report of the virus needs to be checked in order to rule out FMD. Even though Seneca Valley Virus, also known as Senecavirus A (SVA), has been identified in swine herds in the US since the 1980s, it has only been in the past couple of years that the virus has been associated with clinical disease that includes the same vesicular lesions seen in cases of FMD. For reasons not known, the number of SVA cases has dramatically increased this year. Oregon has reported more than 50 cases since early September– all of them connected to the importation of pigs to a slaughter facility in Southern Oregon. A small percentage of pigs that are trucked in arrive with the telltale signs of SVA– blisters on the nose and feet, and general lameness in the animal. Again, the fear that these same symptoms could show up in a case of foot and mouth disease makes it imperative that officials take the reports seriously. To assist state efforts, the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has dispatched a veterinarian to the slaughter facility to handle the increased work load.
