Classical Swine Fever

Description

Classical swine fever is a highly contagious, haemorrhagic disease of swine which is caused by a Togavirus. Presentation may be actue, sub-acute, chronic or persistent, and the disease is indistinguishable in the field from African Swine Fever. Acutely, classical swine fever is characterised by severe depression, high fever and superficial and internal haemorrhages, with many cases resulting in death. Depression, anorexia and pyrexia are seen in chronic classical swine fever. Transplacental infection is also possible and results in persistently infected piglets.

Aetiology

The causative agent of classical swine fever is a small, enveloped virus of around 40nm diameter. The genome is comprised of single stranded RNA, which is positive sense and contains about 12,300 bases. The sequence of the genome is known, and codes four structural and seven non-structural proteins. The classical swine fever virus is relatively stable in excretions and in fresh meat products including ham, salami and other similar sausages. It is, however, easily inactivated by detergents, common disinfectants and heat.

Classical swine fever virus is a Togavirus within the Pestivirus genus of the Flaviviridae. As such, it is closely related to the bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) virus of cattle, and the border disease virus of sheep.

Signalment

Domestic pigs and other swine of any age may become infected with classical swine fever.

Pathogenesis

After transmission by direct spread or by aerosol, classical swine fever virus gains entry to the host via mucous membranes or skin abrasions. An incubation period of around 7 days ensues, but this may vary from 4-10 days. Initially, virus infects the epithelial cells of the tonsillar crypts before spreading via the lymphatics to regional lymph nodes. From here, classical swine fever virus enters the blood stream and then replicates in the spleen, bone marrow and lymph nodes before spreading to further tissues. Replication in the endothelial cells of blood vessels leads to apoptosis, causing superficial and internal haemorrhages. CSFV also causes a thrombocytopenia which contributes to haemorrhage by impairing primary haemostasis. In acute CSF this angiopathy causes pig death in association with shock and the febrile response. Surviving swine go on to develop a chronic form of the disease where joint and enteric lesions are seen resulting from tissue infarction.

The outcome of transplacental infection of foetuses depends largely on the point of gestation and may result in abortions, stillbirths, mummifications, malformations or the birth of weak or persistently viraemic piglets. Although persistently infected piglets may be clinically normal at birth, they grow poorly, excrete virus over long periods and invariably die from CSF.

Treatment

Control

• NOTIFIABLE disease
• Vaccination (live attenuated) in endemic countries:
  • Parts of EU are using vaccinated bait to control spread in wild boar population
  • Vaccination does not curtail spread: marker vaccine needed to distinguish virus exposure from vaccine-induced antibody