Pigs: Animal Diseases

Tim Farron
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate his Department has made of levels of post-weaning mortality in pigs in each year since 1997.

Jane Kennedy
Post-weaning mortality rate data for pigs are not collected by DEFRA. Production data such as post-weaning mortality rate are collected by the British Pig Executive (BPEX) and can be obtained directly from them.

Tim Farron
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate his Department has made of the levels of wasting syndrome found in pigs in each year since 1997.

Jane Kennedy
The occurrence of endemic diseases in the GB pig population is monitored through diagnostic submissions made to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (England and Wales) and the Veterinary Surveillance Centres of the Scottish Agricultural College (Scotland). These results are reported in the Veterinary Investigation Surveillance Report and the quarterly Disease Surveillance reports produced by Veterinary Laboratories Agency for DEFRA. The data captured only represent results for samples/carcasses submitted to Veterinary Laboratories Agency or the Veterinary Surveillance Centres of the Scottish Agricultural College and do not represent the actual number of cases/outbreaks occurring in GB.

Post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) was first diagnosed in GB in mid-1999. The number of incidents of PMWS recorded by Veterinary Laboratories Agency and Veterinary Surveillance Centres of the Scottish Agricultural College (combined) between 2000-07 are as follows. An incident is defined as the first diagnosis in an outbreak.

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|                                                         |Number of incidents|
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|2000                                                     |11                 |
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|2001                                                     |164                |
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|2002                                                     |286                |
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|2003                                                     |259                |
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|2004                                                     |164                |
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|2005                                                     |104                |
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|2006                                                     |66                 |
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|2007                                                     |63                 |
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|Source:Veterinary Investigation Surveillance Report 2007.|                   |
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