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Porcine circovirus type 3 has been circulating throughout the world and since their first report, various clinical signs and disease developments have been documented.The virus is similar to the closely related PCV2 and is associated with several clinical signs called porcine circovirus-associated diseases (PCVAD). PCV2 or PCV3 is occasionally reported with clinical signs such as PDNS, respiratory signs and reproductive failure. Retrospective research conducted in Thailand revealed that both PCV2 and PCV3 have been circulation for decades. However, awareness about PCV3 infection has just arisen in recent years because of the similarities observed in disease circulation and clinical signs that have led to concerns. This study was conducted to find the relationship between the quantity of PCV2 and PCV3 in Thai pigs displaying the clinical signs related to PCVAD. A total of 479 serum samples with different production phases and clinical signs were sent to Kamphaeng Saen Veterinary Diagnostic Center (KVDC) for qPCR to detect the presence of PCV2 or PCV3. There was no relationship between the PCV3 and PCVAD-related clinical signs. Also, the relationship between PCV2 and PCV3 with no clinical signs suggested that both viruses might come from the same reservoir or have been circulating in Thailand for a long time, leading to common incidents in finding. The viral load of PCV2 was significantly different among the pig groups with and without clinical signs. The capsid sequence analysis of PCV3 revealed that 22 capsid sequences obtained from this study were found as clusters within PCV3a with a minor variation. Additional control measures are further needed to reduce the findings of the viruses. A future study with a control experiment may be needed to clarify the pathogenesis of PCV3.

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Background African swine fever (ASF), a highly contagious disease affecting both domestic and wild pigs, has been having a serious impact on the swine industry worldwide. This important transboundary animal disease can be spread by animals and ticks via direct transmission and by contaminated feed and fomites via indirect transmission because of the high environmental resistance of the ASF virus. Thus, the prevention of the introduction of ASF to areas free of ASF is essential. After an outbreak was reported in China, intensive import policies and biosecurity measures were implemented to prevent the introduction of ASF to pig farms in Thailand. Objective Enhancing prevention and control, this study aims to identify the potential areas for ASF introduction and transmission in Thailand, develop a tool for farm assessment of ASF risk introduction focusing on smallholders, and develop a spatial analysis tool that is easily used by local officers for disease prevention and control planning. Methods We applied a multi-criteria decision analysis approach with spatial and farm assessment and integrated the outputs with the necessary spatial layers to develop a spatial analysis on a web-based platform. Results The map that referred to potential areas for ASF introduction and transmission was derived from 6 spatial risk factors; namely, the distance to the port, which had the highest relative importance, followed by the distance to the border, the number of pig farms using swill feeding, the density of small pig farms (<50 heads), the number of pigs moving in the area, and the distance to the slaughterhouse. The possible transmission areas were divided into 5 levels (very low, low, medium, high, and very high) at the subdistrict level, with 27 subdistricts in 10 provinces having very high suitability and 560 subdistricts in 34 provinces having high suitability. At the farm level, 17 biosecurity practices considered as useful and practical for smallholders were selected and developed on a mobile app platform. The outputs from the previous steps integrated with necessary geographic information system layers were added to a spatial analysis web-based platform. Conclusions The tools developed in this study have been complemented with other strategies to fight against the introduction of ASF to pig farms in the country. The areas showing high and very high risk for disease introduction and transmission were applied for spatial information planning, for example, intensive surveillance, strict animal movement, and public awareness. In addition, farms with low biosecurity were improved in these areas, and the risk assessment developed on a mobile app in this study helped enhance this matter. The spatial analysis on a web-based platform helped facilitate disease prevention planning for the authorities.