New Brachyspira Diagnostic Method Expected in 2019

May 2, 2018 — 

Scientists with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine hope to make a new diagnostic method for identifying Brachyspira more generally available in 2019. Scientists with the University of Saskatchewan, on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc with support from Elanco Animal Health, are working to identify the most effective antimicrobials for treating specific strains of Brachyspira. Dr. Joe Rubin, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says the work was prompted by the emergence of a novel species of Brachyspira, Brachyspira hampsonii in the late 2000s, which revealed the diagnostic challenges associated with Brachyspiraand the limitations of existing diagnostic techniques. [Source: Farmscape.ca, April 26, 2018 by Bruce Cochrane]

Clip-Dr. Joe Rubin-University of Saskatchewan:
"In line with that, we realized that we needed methods that would allow us to give producers and swine practitioners laboratory evidence to help them select the most appropriate antimicrobials to use for treating affected herds and that was really what led to this study. The overall goal was to develop some diagnostic techniques and we actually have been able to develop a new susceptibility test method which has worked really well in our lab and we've actually been able to start piloting offering the availability of this test to a small number of practitioners in western Canada. Our next step is try and put this into our routine diagnostic offering and make it something that's available as part of our conventional test package and going forward what we would really like to do is better define some of the genetic determinants of antibiotic resistance, so understanding what the genes are and what some of the mechanisms are, the strategies that Brachyspirauses to make our drugs ineffective."

Dr. Rubin hopes to see this new susceptibility test method more widely available by early 2019.