How to cite this article: Vet. Res. (2009) 40:59
DOI: 10.1051/vetres/2009041

Effect of strain and inoculation dose of classical swine fever virus on within-pen transmission

Eefke Weesendorp^{1, 2}, Jantien Backer¹, Arjan Stegeman² and Willie Loeffen<sup>1

1</sup>  Department of Virology, Central Veterinary Institute of Wageningen UR, P.O. Box 65, 8200 AB, Lelystad, The Netherlands
²  Department of Farm Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Utrecht, Yalelaan 7, 3584 CL, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Received 23 December 2008; accepted 23 July 2009; published online 28 July 2009

Abstract - To improve the understanding of the dynamics and options for control of classical swine fever (CSF), more quantitative knowledge is needed on virus transmission. In this study, virus excretion and within-pen transmission of a strain of low, moderate and high virulence were quantified. Furthermore, the effect of inoculation dose on excretion and transmission were studied. The transmission was quantified using a stochastic susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model. Five transmission trials were conducted with ten pigs each. In each trial, three pigs were inoculated with the low virulent strain Zoelen, a low (10² TCID₅₀), middle (10^3.5 TCID₅₀), or high dose (10⁵ TCID₅₀) of the moderately virulent strain Paderborn, or the highly virulent strain Brescia. The other seven pigs in each trial served as contact pigs. None of the pigs inoculated with the low dose of the Paderborn strain were infected. When it was assumed that the infectiousness of the pigs coincided with virus isolation positive oropharyngeal fluid and/or faeces, no significant differences in transmission rate and basic reproduction ratio R₀ between the high inoculation dose of the Paderborn strain ( /day, ) and the Brescia strain ( /day, ) were observed. When the middle dose of the Paderborn strain was used for inoculation, the (5.38/day) was not significantly higher than the Brescia strain or the high inoculation dose of the Paderborn strain, but the R₀ (148) was significantly higher. Infection with the Zoelen strain resulted in a significantly lower and R₀ (/day, ) than the other strains.

Key words: classical swine fever / transmission parameter / virus excretion / within-pen transmission

Corresponding author: eefke.weesendorp@wur.nl

© INRA, EDP Sciences 2009