@IMB @Ahmed_Sayid The answer is in the linked NPR article.
Tom Burkgren, executive director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, says that there are no vaccines or drugs to give to sows so their piglets won’t get the lethal virus. That means the only tool farmers have is “controlled exposure,” or feeding the remains of sick piglets to sows.
What’s more, he says, “controlled exposure” has been used for decades to protect animals against rare diseases. While PEDV has been in the U.S. for only one year, the technique appears to be working against it, he says.
I trust a vet. I also discovered this in my travels: http://www.cvm.ncsu.edu/news/2013-07-29-Epidemiology-Expert-on-Spread-of-PEDV.html
Pigs that become sick with this disease are treated symptomatically with supportive therapy aimed mostly at preventing dehydration. Very young pigs will often not respond to therapy, and so suffer elevated mortality. Globally, prevention of the disease can be accomplished through one or more types of vaccine programs, and through enhanced biosecurity to decrease the chance a herd is exposed. Vaccines, however, have seen mixed results, especially in Asia, because the Asian PEDV strain is dissimilar from the European strain which is the basis for most vaccines. Vaccines against PEDV are currently not available in the U.S. so right now officials recommend sanitation and strict biosecurity measures including herd closure to limit spreading the disease.
