Fig. 1

Management of expectations for the implementation of S. suis autogenous bacterins in preparturient sow or weaning piglet prime-boost vaccination based on a profound herd diagnosis including virus infections, histopathological investigations and profiling of S. suis pathotypes. For management of expectations we propose that it is crucial to determine the status of virus infection in the herd, the age classes of affected piglets, the localization and character of lesions in pathological investigations and the genotype(s) of the invasive S. suis strains. Herds with PRRSV infection and/or S. suis diseases associated with three or more different cps types have in our opinion a poor prognosis with regard to the protective effectiveness of the AV. SIV infection should lead to a careful prognosis. For 6 to 8-week-old piglets, it is generally difficult to find a working vaccination protocol as maternal immunity does not lead to protection in 8-week-old piglets and priming in suckling piglets is regarded as ineffective [22]. Since endocarditis is associated with biofilm formation and bacteria in biofilms are not killed by opsonizing antibodies, the prognosis in herds with piglets showing endocarditis should also be careful. S. suis diseases undergo a dynamic process in affected herds. Thus, we generally recommend to repeat herd diagnostics at least once prior to generating an autogenous bacterin (at least the bacteriological investigations including genotyping of the S. suis isolates should be repeated)