[Persistence of virus in swine stock and breeding farms following an outbreak of Aujeszky's disease].

On seven fattening farms and seven breeding farms, investigations were carried out to examine whether Aujeszky virus was capable of persisting in particular animal groups or units of the farm as a productive infection following a virologically verified outbreak. After an outbreak on fattening farms, virus persisted temporarily as newly arrived piglets became systematically infected. On the farms on which this could be accurately followed, virus persistence continued for at least 1 1/2 to 2 months. However, this cycle of infection was found to be interrupted on each farm within approximately three months after the outbreak, which resulted in a gradual return to a totally sensitive animal population, so that new outbreaks could occur. On the seven swine breeding farms, virus persistence in the farrowing house was examined by placing seronegative sentinel piglets with sows during the immediate post-partum period. Twelve sentinel piglets were placed in the various farrowing houses for a total period of sixty-seven weeks, during which time 172 sows farrowed. None of these piglets became seropositive during their stay on the breeding farms. The results of this study show that Aujeszky's disease virus did not persist on breeding farms and that the productive infection on fattening farms in only transient following an outbreak. Therefore, it is very likely that new outbreaks of the disease are due to reintroduction of Aujeszky's disease virus on the farm. Though the role of latent carrier animals cannot be totally disregarded, natural reactivation of latent virus is believed an exception rather than the general rule.