SWINE HEALTH IN DENMARK .2. THE DANISH SP F PROGRAM - LABOR HEALTH

By its organisation and size the Danish SPF programme is unique in Eur ope and is one of the best in the world. There are two SPF centres in Denmark, where primary SPF piglets are produced by hysterotomy and eit her are brought up in sterile conditions or immediately transferred to existent SPF herds to be fostered with SPF darns. There are 100 SPF n ucleus, about 200 multiplier and 300 commercial SPF herds in Denmark. Eighty per cent of the breeding swine sold is of SPF status. Twenty pe r cent of the slaughter pigs is also SPF. There are rigorous control m easures to secure the SPF status. These include the uni-directional sa le of pigs (nucleus herds --> multiplier herds --> commercial herds), nucleus herds can bring in primary SPF piglets only for replacement, S PF farm can be established, where in 300 m radius there are no commerc ial pig farms. Nucleus and multiplier herds are clinically controlled by months. Serological tests are performed at various intervals depend ing on the disease to be monitored by using the methods summarised in Table 1. Monitoring also includes bacteriological examination (Table 2 ). Commercial SPF herds are checked also by the same methods, however, with less frequent intervals. SPF herds produce about 10% better weig ht gain and FCR (Table 3) with less disease occurrence and smaller exp enditure for therapeuticals. Further advantage is that carcasses of SP F slaughter pigs are free of residues and microbes. Health of Danish f armers have been regularly screened since 1991. The programme includes through investigation of 2000 farmers a year. By using questionnaires subjective symptoms are collected and studied. The analysis includes the effects of air pollution, physical and psychological risk factors. As results of these studies, limit values for air pollutants have bee n set (Table 4). Table 6 discloses the results of questionnaires on he alth of farmers.