The economic impact of endemic respiratory disease in pigs and related interventions - a systematic review

Abstract

Background: Understanding the financial consequences of endemically prevalent pathogens within the porcine respiratory disease complex (PRDC) and the effects of interventions assists decision-making regarding disease prevention and control. The aim of this systematic review was to identify what economic studies have been carried out on infectious endemic respiratory disease in pigs, what methods are being used, and, when feasible, to identify the economic impacts of PRDC pathogens and the costs and benefits of interventions.

Results: By following the PRISMA method, a total of 58 studies were deemed eligible for the purpose of this systematic review. Twenty-six studies used data derived from European countries, 18 from the US, 6 from Asia, 4 from Oceania, and 4 from other countries, i.e., Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Main findings from selected publications were: (1) The studies mainly considered endemic scenarios on commercial fattening farms; (2) The porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus was by far the most studied pathogen, followed by Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, but the absence or presence of other endemic respiratory pathogens was often not verified or accounted for; (3) Most studies calculated the economic impact using primary production data, whereas twelve studies modelled the impact using secondary data only; (4) Seven different economic methods were applied across studies; (5) A large variation exists in the cost and revenue components considered in calculations, with feed costs and reduced carcass value included the most often; (6) The reported median economic impact of one or several co-existing respiratory pathogen(s) ranged from €1.70 to €8.90 per nursery pig, €2.30 to €15.35 per fattening pig, and €100 to €323 per sow per year; and (7) Vaccination was the most studied intervention, and the outcomes of all but three intervention-focused studies were neutral or positive.

Conclusion: The outcomes and discussion from this systematic review provide insight into the studies, their methods, the advantages and limitations of the existing research, and the reported impacts from the endemic respiratory disease complex for pig production systems worldwide. Future research should improve the consistency and comparability of economic assessments by ensuring the inclusion of high impact cost and revenue components and expressing results similarly.

Keywords: Economic impact; Pigs; Respiratory Disease; Systematic review.

Fig. 1

Flow diagram illustrating the systematic search strategy for identifying relevant studies. *JSHAP = Journal of Swine Health and Production

Fig. 2

Cost and revenue components considered in economic analyses of studies on PRRSV. * Other components include penalties, subsidies/compensation and industry effects

Fig. 3

Economic impact of disease caused by endemic respiratory pathogens. The economic impact is expressed in decreased profit (in euros) per sow-year (a), per nursery pig (b), and/or, per fattening pig (c). Circles indicate a single reported outcome, whereas boxplots represent a range of economic outcomes from one study (e.g. when different scenarios with varying disease severity were considered, or when economic losses were reported for multiple farms separately). Reported outcomes were adjusted for inflation up until the year 2023 and converted to euros as a common currency. Studies that are marked with an *, did not include feed costs as a component in their economic analysis