ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1463720
Risk assessment of African swine fever transmission by spray-dried porcine plasma in piglet feed and the effect of UV irradiation treatment as an additional safety step
Provisionally accepted- 1Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, Wageningen University and Research, Lelystad, Netherlands
- 2Sonac / Darling Ingredients, Son, Netherlands
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The increase of African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks worldwide has raised concerns about the feeding of spray-dried porcine plasma (SDPP) to pigs. The processing of blood into SDPP should thus guarantee sufficient inactivation of ASF virus (ASFV) to render a safe product. The objective of this study was to evaluate (i) the required level of inactivation if blood of ASF-infected pigs would be processed into SDPP and fed to piglets, and (ii) the additional safety achieved if UV treatment is applied to plasma before spray-drying. A quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model was built to assess the infection probability (P_inf) of weaned piglets fed with SDPP produced from blood collected from a single ASF-infected herd. The inactivation of ASFV by UV treatment was quantified using a mobile, laboratory-scale “Cold Pasteurization” apparatus (Lyras inc, Aalborg, Denmark). Porcine plasma spiked with blood collected from pigs experimentally infected with ASFV was irradiated with different doses of UV-C and the log10 reduction factor (LRF) calculated. An average LRF of 2.2. was achieved by the highest dose of UV-C irradiation applied (~137 Joule/m2). QMRA model results indicate that an LRF of 5 needs to be achieved during processing to arrive at a median value of P_inf < 0.01, i.e. less than 1 out of 100 ASF-infected batches resulting in new infections. With an LRF of 8, also the 95th percentile value of P_inf is < 0.01. These results were compared to reported LRF values of spray-drying and dry storage of SDPP, which varied between 5.2 and 11.1. Applying UV-C irradiation as an additional step in SDPP production thus provides extra safety guarantees as the combined inactivation levels of spray-drying, dry storage and UV treatment are likely to result in an overall LRF 8, implying a very low risk of new ASF infections (median P_inf 7.310-6; 95th percentile 1.610-3). The QMRA model did not account for the probability that ASF-infected pigs are unintendedly processed into SDPP. This probability is low if SDPP is not sourced from pigs in ASF-infected areas, therewith further reducing the ASF infection risk of SDPP.
Keywords: African Swine Fever, Spray-dried porcine plasma, quantitative microbial risk assessment, UV treatment, Safety, log10 reduction factor
Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 De Vos, Heres, Dekker, Swanenburg, Pelser, Post and Hulst. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Clazien J. De Vos, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, Wageningen University and Research, Lelystad, Netherlands
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