Abstract
Sixty farrowing-finish farms located in throughout mainland Korea were surveyed on their vaccination managements for swine infectious diseases in October 2005. Classical swine fever (CSF) vaccinations are regularly conducted in the reproductive herds of 52 farms. Most farms performed vaccinations for sow groups around the weaning period of their piglets after farrowing [i.e., before weaning in 41 farms (68.3%), at the time of weaning in 9 farms (15.0%), and after weaning in 1 farm (1.7%)]. In the case of growing herds, 40 farms (66.7%) were found to implement double vaccinations as recommended. However, only piglets of 22 out of 40 farms were vaccinated at 6 and 8 weeks after birth following the Korean government recommendations for the vaccination. The remaining 18 farms were answered to vaccinate earlier or later than the recommended time. The rate of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) vaccination was only 16.7% (n=10) and 8.3% (n=5) in sows and piglets, respectively. Although PRRS has heavily impacted the Korean pig industries, its immunization rate still remained very low. In contrast, all pig farms investigated in this survey were confirmed to perform the porcine parvovirus (PPV) vaccination in sow herds. Vaccination levels of transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) and porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) were shown to be only 65.0% and 68.3%, respectively, suggesting that more public education would be required for pig farmers to increase the vaccination rate. Three quarters of farms were answered to perform vaccination to Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (Er) in sows (75%, n=45), whereas only 38.3% (n=23) were vaccinated in piglet herds. The results of survey on the 5 major bacterial respiratory diseases indicated that the highest vaccination rate in sows was observed in Bordetella bronchiseptica (Bb) (76.7%), followed by Pasteurella multocida(Pm) (45.0%), Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mh) (15.0%), Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (App) (16.7%) and Haemophilus parasuis (Hps) (10.0%). In the case of piglets, the rate of vaccination to Mh (83.3%) was the highest, followed by App (58.3%), Bb (38.3%), Pm (36.7%) and Hps (16.7%). Although 7 (11.7%) of 60 farms were investigated to vaccinate against only one disease, most of farms were found to implement combined vaccinations to more than two diseases: 18 farms (30%) for 2, 8 farms (13.3%) for 3, 17 farms (28.3%) for 4, and 10 farms (16.7%) for 5 bacterial respiratory diseases. The data revealed that farmers preferred to vaccinate against Mh for one disease, Mh and Bb for two diseases, and Mh, Bb, Pm or App for more than three diseases in field situations.