Foot-and-mouth disease: Measurements of aerosol emission from pigs as a function of virus strain and initial dose

Measurements of airborne foot-and-mouth disease virus have been made using 20 pigs that had either O UKG or C Noville injected into their heel-pads to determine if the kinetics of virus emission are related to the virus strain and dose administered in the challenge inoculum. Viable virus was detected in aerosol emissions for 3 days regardless of the strain or dose of virus given. No correlation was found between the peak level of virus emission and dose, but pigs infected with a lower dose of virus had a delayed onset of aerosol emission and emitted a greater total amount of aerosolised virus. Irrespective of the dose, both the total amount and the peak level of virus emission were higher from pigs infected with C Noville compared to those infected with O UKG. The results suggest that care should be taken when extrapolating from laboratory derived data to the field; this is particularly the case in the early days of an outbreak when the aerosol characteristics of the virus involved may be unknown and the amount of virus that an individual animal has been challenged with remains uncertain.