WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) renewed funding last week for the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) Coordinated Agricultural Project.

The agency will invest invest $4.8 million over the next four years to reduce animal suffering and decrease economic losses from PRRS, which affects 60 percent of U.S. swine herds and costs the swine industry $580 million annually.

"A new strain of highly pathogenic PRRS has been found in China and Vietnam and is implicated as the primary cause of Porcine High Fever Disease, resulting in the death of large numbers of swine," said Gale Buchanan, USDA under secretary for Research, Education, and Economics. "Renewal of the PRRS project responds to the urgent need to make sure the right tools are available to keep this foreign strain from affecting the U.S. swine population."

CSREES originally funded the project to the University of Minnesota in 2004.

The second phase of the project will be led by Kansas State University, the USDA said. It will focus on prevention and control tools; knowledge needed to support scientists; application of existing and new technologies in regional disease eradication efforts; and development of educational and outreach programs for scientists, producers and veterinarians.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture