POST-WEANING MULTISYSTEMIC WASTING SYNDROME IN FRANCE: WHAT WE HAVE LEARNT FROM FIELD EPIDEMIOLOGY
N. Rose and F. Madec

Abstract
Ten years ago, the first descriptions of a new emerging syndrome were reported in France. This new disease, called Post-Weaning Multisystemic Wasting Syndrome, was devastating in many French farrow-to-finish operations in the early period of the onset of the disease. In the authors' laboratory, a strategy was developed to find emergency solutions in severely affected herds and to learn from those case studies the first rules of the epidemiology of this new syndrome. Those first observations were the basic elements for further investigations combining epidemiological field studies (cross-sectional studies, cohort studies) and experimental trials in the level three biosecurity facilities. The use of this multidisciplinary approach, joining the teams in virology, experimentation and epidemiology, led to the identification of the main farm level and individual level risk factors for the syndrome. Experiments carried out with SPF sows and growing pigs free from PCV1 and PCV2 contributed to a large extent to further validate and understand the biological involvement of the risk factors in the pathogenesis of the syndrome.

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