No system nor standardized analytical procedures at commercial laboratories exist to facilitate and accurately measure potential viable virus contamination in feed ingredients and complete feeds globally. As a result, there is high uncertainty of the extent of swine virus contamination in global feed supply chains. Many knowledge gaps need to be addressed to improve our ability to prevent virus contamination and transmission in swine feed. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge involving: (1) the need for biosecurity protocols to identify production, processing, storage, and transportation conditions that may cause virus contamination of feed ingredients and complete feed; (2) challenges of measuring virus inactivation; (3) virus survival in feed ingredients during transportation and storage; (4) minimum infectious doses; (5) differences between using a food safety objective versus a performance objective as potential approaches for risk assessment in swine feed; (6) swine virus inactivation from thermal and irradiation processes, and chemical mitigants in feed ingredients and complete feed; (7) efficacy of virus decontamination strategies in feed mills; (8) benefits of functional ingredients, nutrients, and commercial feed additives in pig diets during a viral health challenge; and (9) considerations for improved risk assessment models of virus contamination in feed supply chains.
Keywords: biosecurity; chemical mitigants; feed; swine; thermal processing; virus detection methods.