About PRRS

• PRRS stands for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome. It is rated as the No1 enemy of the pork industry worldwide. It does not affect humans.
• PRRS is an RNA virus which means that it is unpredictable. It can and has rapidly changed its genetic make-up and is therefore very hard to control. How it will change in the future is unknown.
• PRRS causes severe immune suppression (similar to HIV in humans) making the animal susceptible to other diseases including pneumonia and results in piglets slowly wasting away until one or more diseases kills it.
• PRRS causes significant deaths in pigs. During the acute phase of PRRS, piglet mortality pre-weaning can peak at 70%, and another 12-15% will die post weaning. It has significant animal welfare implications for NZ pigs if they are infected.
• During the acute phase affected sows can have 15% reduction in farrowing rate, increased levels of abortion and increased still births
• The primary route of infection under these import health standards is from pigs eating uncooked imported infected pigmeat from trimming and scraps.
• Currently New Zealand and Australia are two of very few countries in the world that have not had this devastating disease. Australia has significantly stronger border standards for PRRS and has no intention of changing current standards.

In 2006 MAF Biosecurity New Zealand proposed to reduce the border standards in place that prevent PRRS infected meat from entering New Zealand. Analysis completed by Massey University shows that if these border standards are relaxed an infection of PRRS in the New Zealand pork industry would occur.

The links at the right include NZPork’s submissions to MAF BNZ, key MAF documents, and other documents.