Pig Exposure and Health Outcomes in Hospitalized Infectious Disease Patients in Vietnam

Abstract

Many infectious diseases have a zoonotic origin, and several have had major public health implications. Contact with animals is a known risk factor for zoonotic infections, although there are limited data on disease symptoms and pathogens associated with contact with different animal species. The rise in pig production in Southeast Asia has contributed to the emergence and re-emergence of zoonotic infections caused by contact with pigs and pig products. To compare the symptom and pathogen profiles of hospitalized patients with and without pig contact, we collected data on disease symptoms, infecting pathogens, and animal contact behaviour from patients attending six hospitals across Vietnam between 2012 and 2016. Patients who had previous contact with pigs were more likely to have enteric disease than respiratory or central nervous system infections and were more likely to grow Escherichia coli and Shigella from stool culture than those without pig contact. Patients with enteric infections who kept pigs were also more likely to have a disease of unknown origin. Public health initiatives that account for differences in animal contact behaviours and offer more comprehensive diagnostics in high-risk individuals are needed if emergence and re-emergence of zoonotic disease is to be monitored and prevented.

Aetiology and Potential Animal Exposure in Central Nervous System Infections in Vietnam

“…Informed written consent was obtained from patients (or their parents/legal guardians) included in the study. Diagnostic results from this study were previously described in a paper by Robertson et al ( 2020 ) who looked at the association between contact with pigs and the symptoms and aetiology amongst patients in VIZIONS (Robertson et al 2020 ).…”

“…The consumption of raw pig blood is common in Vietnam with 35% of respondents in surveys conducted in Hanoi reporting consumption of the dish Tiet canh (raw blood pudding) in the previous year (Huong et al 2014 ). The risk of meningitis from S. suis from infected pigs is common, particularly in Asia (Mai et al 2008 ) and another analysis of the VIZIONS data found that over 26% of patients admitted with an enteric, respiratory or CNS infection had had contact with pigs, while eating/handling of raw meat, blood or viscera was the most common form of contact across all hospital sites (Robertson et al 2020 ). However, in our study, we only found an association between S. suis and slaughtering pigs.…”