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Prevalence of faecal Lawsonia intracellularis shedding in piglets:

A European field study using Lawsonia FIRSTtest®
Annick Saives2 Vincent Auvigne1 Susana Lapuente1
1. EKIPAJ, Madrid, Spain; 2. Elanco Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Introduction Fig. 1: Distribution of the intra-batch prevalence

Lawsonia intracellularis (LI) is a major bacterial pathogen in pigs,
responsible for ileitis (Proliferative Enteropathy), a digestive dis-
ease that greatly reduces the animal’s performance in the grow-
ing and finishing stage. The pathogen is endemic worldwide.
The level of its excretion is variable and is linked to the severity
of clinical signs (1). It is therefore important to gain a better
knowledge of the epidemiology of the excretion of Lawsonia, for
a better, targeted preventive and therapeutic approach.

Materials and Methods

Lawsonia FIRSTtest® is a new ELISA diagnostic tool designed to
detect LI in faeces (2). A qualitative result is obtained by com-
parison to a positive control by indication of a color change to
blue. By validation testing comparing to PCR, it is determined
that if more than 3 out of 10 samples are positives, the batch is
considered as shedding LI with a prevalence of at least 40% (3). Table 1: Age pattern and age effect in herds with at least 2 sampled
For most herds, a sample size of ten is adequate to determine if a batches
farm is positive or negative.
The study was carried out in 2008 and 2009 in 12 European
countries. 7362 growing pigs of 531 farms were included. On
138 farms, two or more age groups were sampled. The aver-
age number of fecal samples per age and per farm was 10.8.
Age (weeks of life) was available for 624 out of the 684 sampled
batches. When more than one age group was sampled, the
effects of age and herd were studied, using the Wilcoxon
Match-Pairs Signed Ranks Test and Spearman’s rank correlation,
respectively.

Results
The overall individual and batch prevalence was 55% and 82%,
respectively. The intra-batch prevalence (image. 1) shows a
bimodal distribution with one subpopulation around the 50
%-prevalence mark and another subgroup with a prevalence of
90% or more.
The herd effect was confirmed in this study: if pigs of 16 weeks
and older were positive, pigs from the same herd in age groups
11-13 weeks and 14-16 weeks tended to be positive as well. The
age effect was also confirmed: pigs aged 11-13 weeks shed sig-
nificantly less bacteria that those aged 14-16 weeks or 16 weeks
and older (Tab 1).
Discussion
This study confirms the high prevalence of LI on pig farms (4).
However, shedding is not homogeneous, as shown by the herd
and age effect. Shedding should therefore be evaluated herd
level by measuring shedding in 2 different ages in the same
farm. Sampling should be sufficient to assess the intra-batch
prevalence and to adjust the preventive and therapeutic ap-
proach. Sampling should be standardised to allow for a compari-
son of the results between farms.

References
1. Paradis, M. et al. Proceeding AASV (2005).
2. Gebhart, C. Elanco internal report (2008).
3. Green, L. Epidemiologic report. Elanco internal report (2008)
3. Strachan, W. et al. Proc. 20th IPVS (2008).2, 294

Proceedings of the 21st IPVS Congress, Vancouver, Canada – July 18-21, 2010 697