Classical swine fever: A life threatening disease of pigs

Abstract

Classical swine fever (CSF), also known as hog cholera, is a highly contagious multisystemic, hemorrhagic, viral disease of swine caused by a member of the Flaviviridae family, genus Pestivirus. The disease is still a threat and one of the most menacing viral diseases with serious economic consequences. Common routes of virus transmission are movement of infected pigs, the feeding of infected waste food, improperly disinfected vehicles and the movements of people, still several other modes of transmission of CSFV have been suspected. Overall four forms of classical swine fever have been described peracute, acute, subacute and chronic. Pathognomonic splenic infarcts, epiglottal hemorrhages, petechial sub-capsular cortical hemorrhages (“turkey egg kidneyâ€) are important in acute form, whereas, colonic button ulcers characterize the chronic form of infection. Microscopical lesions are also typical of the disease. The highly variable clinical picture of CSF often precludes a diagnosis on clinical and pathological basis alone. Laboratory methods are therefore essential for a confirmatory diagnosis. Nowadays, many techniques like FAT, IHC, RT-PCR, real-time PCR etc are used for the molecular detection of the virus within a limited time period. Moreover, the disease is to be differentially diagnosed from other look-a-like diseases of pigs. Vaccination is the only way of protecting the animals.