Figure 1.

Experimental design of the field study. Experiment 1: Piglets from non-vaccinated sows were vaccinated during the first week at 4 days ± 2 and at weaning with the autogenous vaccine (containing S. suis serotype 7). Blood samples were collected from randomly chosen piglets at 1, 3, 5 and 8 weeks of age. Control (including placebo animals) were also included. Experiment 2: (A) Sows were at their parity 0 and received two doses of autogenous vaccine (containing S. suis serotypes 7 and 9) intramuscularly at 5 and 3 weeks before farrowing. Blood samples were taken from all enrolled sows prior to vaccination at 5 weeks before farrowing and at 1 week before farrowing (2 weeks after the 2nd vaccine dose). (B) Randomly selected piglets from vaccinated and non-vaccinated sows were sampled at 1, 3 and 5 weeks of age.