Efficacy of Duplalim against Porcine Sapovirus – Veterquimica

By Jonathan Mendoza Fernández, Veterinarian and Product Manager, Health and Biosecurity, Veterquimica, Chile.

Sapovirus (SaV) is a virus genus in the Caliciviridae family. This virus is characterized as causing gastrointestinal disease in humans and pigs. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and fever. In pigs, it causes acute gastroenteritis and diarrhea. Its mode of transmission is fecal/oral and an estimated 10 virus particles are required to initiate infection. These particles can also survive for years in the environment.

Sapoviruses play an important role in the deterioration of the animals they affect, reducing their productive performance and making them more susceptible to infection by other opportunistic microorganisms. As well as negatively impacting feed conversion efficiency, this reduces pig gain and growth rates, which can have a significant economic impact on the farm.

Notably, the virus affects piglets in particular, causing watery diarrhea, vomiting, loss of appetite, lethargy and dehydration.

Today, sapovirus-induced disease is considered emerging because it was only recently recognized as a causative agent of gastroenteritis in humans and animals. Although the existence of these viruses has been known since 1979, their presence has not been associated with digestive disease until recent decades. This is thanks to diagnostic and laboratory advances that facilitate its identification and characterization.

In terms of its prevention and control, these are closely related to biosafety measures such as cleaning and disinfection of personnel’s vehicles, materials and sanitary filters.

Duplalim, effective against sapovirus

To ensure that the application of a sanitizer product is effective in reducing the microbial load, manufacturers may conduct specific laboratory tests. Those include chemical compounds directed against bacterial cultures or substrates with known viral loads. Subsequently, the reduced pathogenic burden can be calculated once the products are applied in different combinations of dilutions and durations of action.

At Veterquimica we have Duplalim, a proven virucidal disinfectant against a wide range of microorganisms and was recently shown to be effective against Sapovirus. This quality is proven through effectiveness studies conducted by the University of Minnesota, USA.

In this study, viral particles were exposed to different dilutions of Duplalim and at different contact times to assess which application was the most recommended to achieve adequate disinfection.

The results of this study concluded that Duplalim inactivated 99.99% of porcine sapovirus after 5 minutes at a 1:100 dilution. In addition, in the 1:200 dilution, the disinfection capacity was reached after 15 minutes of action.