Dissecting Animal Diseases with the Animal and Plant Health Agency
Welcome to this podcast, where we talk all about animal diagnostic investigations completed here at the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
Please note that this podcast includes pathological descriptions of injuries and animal disease which some listeners may find upsetting.
© Crown copyright 2026
Dissecting Animal Diseases with the Animal and Plant Health Agency
Investigating congenital tremors in piglets
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In this episode, Claire Scott, APHA's Pig Expert Group lead, and Cornelia Bidewell, Veterinary Investigation Officer (VIO) at Bury St Edmunds Veterinary Investigation Centre (VIC), discuss completion of a diagnostic investigation into a case of congenital tremors in litters born to parity two sows.
Please note that this podcast includes pathological descriptions of animal disease which some listeners may find upsetting.
This episode was recorded in August 2025.
Useful links:
- Watch a video of pigs with congenital tremors.
- Read about this case in the pig section of the disease surveillance in England and Wales, March 2025 report, which is published in the Vet Record.
- Read more about the different types of congenital tremors in our surveillance focus article published in the Vet Record.
- Find out how vets can submit farm animals in England and Wales for a post-mortem examination and check if the submission is eligible for free carcase collection.
- Find your nearest Veterinary Investigation Centre (VIC) or surveillance pathology partner.
- Find out how vets can submit samples from farm animals in England and Wales for diagnostic submissions.
- Find out how to report suspect notifiable animal disease.
- Read more UK-based research on congenital tremors due to atypical porcine pestivirus.
© Crown copyright 2026
Welcome to the fourth podcast in this series where we talk all about animal diagnostic investigations completed here at the Animal and Plant Health Agency. I'm Claire and I lead APHA's Pig Expert Group. And today I have the amazing Cornelia with me to talk about a case of congenital tremors in piglets born to parity to sows. Thank you so much for joining us, Cornelia. It is fantastic to have you with us, and I'm really excited about this conversation. Before we start, can I ask you to introduce yourself to our listeners?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'm Cornelia and I'm a veterinary investigation officer based at the APHA laboratories in Barry St Edmonds. And I've been a veteran investigation officer for over 30 years now, with over 20 years of those being at Barry St. Edmunds. Before I joined APHA, I always had an interest in farm animals, worked in mixed practice for nearly 10 years, and have always had a leaning towards pigs and to pathology.
SPEAKER_01Brilliant. Thank you. And so Cornelia, I think you're the perfect person for this discussion because you've really been at the forefront of how we investigate congenital tremors in the UK and have seen some real developments over the time that you've been working as a veterinary investigation officer for us.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so I qualified at a time when we knew congenital tremor was a disease in pigs, as it's described, congenital tremor, but we had no idea what caused it, other than the pathology would suggest it was a virus. So for most of my career, we went along with, oh, it's probably a virus, but we didn't actually know. So we've had to wait for a change in diagnostic ability to recognise what it really is.
SPEAKER_01That's so interesting. And so when you're talking about congenital tremors there, you're talking about the type of congenital tremors caused by atypical porcine pesti virus. And we're going to go lots more into that type and also the other types a bit later on. So I think that's a great introduction then for us to lead into our case. So can you tell us a bit about how this case came about?
SPEAKER_00Yes, this was a phone call that came in from an experienced private veterinary surgeon, a pig specialist, who was seeing something he wasn't able to fully explain because he was used to seeing congenital tremor, which we normally associate with a disease in pigs born to guilt, first parity pigs, and these were born to second parity pigs. And the disease was as you would expect to see in its presentation, other than the fact that the sows were older.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great. And so the farm was a 1,000 sow continuous outdoor wiener producer, so a breeding unit, uh, furrowing every three weeks. And we've actually put a video of one of the piglets online so that our listeners can see exactly the clinical signs that you're referring to when you talk about congenital tremors. But can you tell us about those uh clinical signs and the presentation that you would expect?
SPEAKER_00Tend to tremble all over. So head, body, legs, um, they can stand and they're fairly bright, but the whole body is trembling. And it can be variable. Sometimes it's not as marked as in the video that's being shown. And because the legs will tend to hop up and down, they sometimes will almost look as if they're dancing and maybe move backwards because they're sort of hopping, so they're dancing or hopping pigs, and then when they rest or they sit down in some straw, it it will almost go away. So it lessens on um when they're not being stimulated.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and then in terms of resolution with age, am I right in thinking that tremors usually resolve by about four weeks of age and so around weaning on a commercial unit, but in rarer cases can persist for longer.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so usually at weaning, which for our commercial pigs is four weeks to five weeks, the um tremor has gone in most pigs, and maybe or it's very slight, or if they're being stressed for sampling or moving, it may sort of just become apparent at that time.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, that's great. Then you mentioned there's this kind of spectrum from mild to more severe cases, and then uh in severe cases the piglet could perhaps not be able to drink, which could then potentially lead to starvation for those animals.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so they need quite a lot of nursing if they're not able to hold on to the teat.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, and because they're possibly not getting the right amount of colostrum, they may be more prone to secondary infection, which could also make them ill at the neonatal stage.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And am I right in thinking that so um on this farm, when when this particular batch had varied as GILTs, a large number of their litters born to parity one cells had been affected with congenital tremors?
SPEAKER_00Yes, the history was about 80%, I think, of the P1 um GILTs had produced CT congenital tremor piglets.
SPEAKER_01And I understand there were no kind of other significant disease issues and cells were healthy in case mortality was low, which I guess leads us on to our next question, then, which is when you when you get a phone call from a submitting vet wanting to investigate congenital tremors or CT, is there anything that you need to establish before you accept a submission of piglets to the lab?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's always really important, and a pig specialist like the one who phoned in would know that, but perhaps other um less experienced pig bets may need to be reminded that congenital tremor is a sign of um classical spine fever. The presentation of the piglets would appear quite similar, but uh triage would involve finding out more about other age groups of pigs, um, the mortality of those congenital tremor pigs, because it would usually be higher than the normal congenital tremor we're talking about in this case, whether there's fever, um, there have been a history maybe of abortion, stillbirths, reproductive disease, um, and other sick pigs on the premises, um, because that wouldn't be a feature of the congenital tremor that we're discussing today.
SPEAKER_01Great, okay, that's super helpful. And um that's important because classical swine fever isn't present in the UK and is notifiable, and as always, we'll put details of how to report suspect notifiable disease in England, Wales, and Scotland in the show notes. Yeah, so in this case, then there weren't any features that made you suspicious of classical swine fever because there were no other significant disease issues in the herd, and the cells of affected litters were healthy in the case mortality was low, and also the CT wasn't present by weaning. Um, there's this slightly unusual factor of the litters from P2 cells being affected. Um, and and it sounds like that's the reason that the vet wanted to pursue the diagnostic investigation in this case.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that would that was the um initial thinking, and also in case there's something new and emerging, because uh we have a very important role to look for new and emerging disease. And for that practitioner, this was unusual, and it gives us the scope to look for other things as either we confirm it's what we expect it to be, or we've got to start looking for something else if it's not bad.
SPEAKER_01That's great. So, can we start to talk through then how we investigate congenital tremors? I believe in this case you had some live pigs into the diagnostic lab which you humanely euthanased, which isn't something that we do very frequently, but that's important when you have a clinical presentation which we need to investigate in order to fulfil that remit of investigating potential new animal disease-related threats. So, can you talk through why we needed to receive live pigs into the diagnostic lab in this case?
SPEAKER_00So we need um the live pigs because we need to investigate um, particularly the brain and spinal cord, which would be damaged by on-farm euthanasia. So by euthanasing intravenously, we preserve those tissues. And we not only need to see them grossly, um, most likely they will have to go for histological examination as well, um, which is really important, both for diagnosing uh congenital tremor and any other differentials that we may want to look at.
SPEAKER_01So it's important then to get some typically affected pigs into the lab, but it sounds like there's always a kind of careful discussion between you and the submitting vet around what's appropriate for each case.
SPEAKER_00Yes, the submitting vet is sort of the one who determines that the welfare is appropriate for those pigs, um and we will talk that through with them, but it is ultimately their decision. Um, they know the farm, the distance the animals got to travel, the method of transport. But yes, the pigs have got to be suitable to be transported alive and they have to be carefully transported so they've got some bedding, they're comfortable, they're contained, so they're not going to move around in the vehicle, um, and really don't want them travelling too far because they are near-natal animals and they come under license, and we will assess them on arrival to make sure that we're happy with how they have been transported as well.
SPEAKER_01As always, then we'll put links in the show notes for how vets can submit carcasses or samples to one of APHA's veterinary investigation centres or surveillance pathology partners. So, what happened then once these piglets arrived in this case?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so when the pigs arrive, um we have a quick assessment to determine that their welfare was okay, which in this case it was. We look at the clinical signs, um, record those, um, and then usually if it's a nervous disease, we take videos because it's really helpful to share that with colleagues and also go back and look at it again. Um, I will usually take rectal temperatures, that's still important because with swine fever, pigs may have a rectal temperature, perhaps not congenital tremor pigs, um, but I think it's important to know that for differentials as well. So, a clinical assessment, then we will collect blood samples and then euthanasia by intravenous uh injection. And following euthanasia, um, we do a full post-mortem examination. So we're looking at all the tissues as we normally would, and then we will be removing the brain and spinal cord, and without nervous signs that are relevant, we wouldn't necessarily always remove the spinal cord. I would say we mostly remove the brain if it's intact still, um, but spinal cord is a bit of an add-on to that. So that has to be done quite carefully because we're collecting fixed informal saline and fresh tissue, um, the fresh tissue being for virology and possibly bacteriology and the fixed tissue for histological examination.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so when the pigs arrive, then you're checking the clinical presentation, you're making sure that you do have congenital tremors rather than another presentation, for example, ataxia, and then you're completing your full diagnostic post-mortem examination, which in this case will also involve removing the spinal cord, which it sounds like would be quite difficult to do in the field.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's fiddly, and it's also quite difficult to do things in a clean fashion in the field as well. And if doing virology, um, particularly when it's a new and emerging, which this was at one stage, you want to be absolutely sure you haven't got contaminants in there. So it's important to do it as aseptically as possible, which is very difficult on farm, and actually removing spinal cord and brain isn't very easy on farm either, and may not even have the right instruments with you to undertake that.
SPEAKER_01Of course, okay. Um, and so in this case then, did you find anything grossly? What um what did you observe during the post-mortal examination?
SPEAKER_00So, no, in these pigs, nothing to see grossly, um, which is kind of what you'd expect.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great. We'll we'll delve into that more as as we go through then. And I guess again, this reinforces your lack of suspicion for classical swine fever as well, that you that you didn't see any gross.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so classical swine fever could be different from um this type of viral uh pestivirus congenital tremor because you may see um a smaller cerebellum. Correct. So there may be hyperplasia of the cerebellum, which you won't see in um APPB congenital tremor.
SPEAKER_01Great. So you've touched on there um that that we've got a couple a few different types of congenital tremor then. Can you go through those different types for us and what we think?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this is what I grew up with was this labelling chart A and B. So A, A, congenital tremor had lesions, B did not.
SPEAKER_01And so by lesions, then you're also talking about histopathological lesions, because as you said, these um the post-mortem examination of these cases is often normal grossly. And then type B is really undescribed in the literature, but hasn't been a feature of congenital tremor here, and we don't know what would cause it. So we'll focus on type A.
SPEAKER_00And then A, there's one to five, and those are Roman numerals one to five. So classical swine fever, it is a pesti virus, is A1. A2 is now also a pestivirus, atypical porcine pestivirus, which is was always a viral suspected but unknown until about 10 years ago, what the actual virus was. Then we've got A3 and 4, which are genetic diseases, so land race, sex-linked, saddleback, autosomal recessive, and then A5 is uh organophosphate toxic um etiology. Well, not all the same pathology, but the clinical presentation is similar as the congenital tremor.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that was a brilliant crash course. And there's also a fantastic surveillance-focused article that goes through the different types, which we'll link in the show notes in case our listeners want to see all of that written down. My understanding is that there have been a few other viruses associated with congenital tremors, but causative links are currently tentative. So I think let's not describe those here, but but note that this is kind of an evolving field.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's fair.
SPEAKER_01Brilliant. Okay, so how did you uh instigate diagnostic testing in this case to differentiate between those different types of congenital tremors type A, then?
SPEAKER_00So if we're talking laboratory tests and we've already gone through the clinical presentation, the gross pathology differs from classical swine fever. Um, so we've now really come down to looking for the APPB virus.
SPEAKER_01Which from now on we'll just call APPV, which is a bit of a math or a math or even about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, and that's a PCR test, which we uh colleagues at Weybridge undertake that testing. Um, and that's on neurological tissue, but it can also be lymphoid tissue and blood and histological findings. So that's going to be spinal cord and brain will be examined. And some of the lesions are quite subtle and variable, um, and it's not perhaps always the easiest. So it's looking for vacuoling of nervous tissue, uh, white matter, and also um low levels of myelin, which is done by special stain.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and touching back onto what you mentioned earlier, then was is that it's important then to both find that the the virus is present, i.e. a PCR positive, um, but also showing that there are the lesions in the central nervous system and that those two are um associated together in order to establish diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that is important because quite a lot of work's been done now since the virus was found, and we know that now it will there will be um litter mates that it's not usually the whole litter that's affected with the actual congenital tremor. Some of those may actually be virus positive, either born virus positive or by horizontal transmission from the infected pigs, and also other litters could have horizontal infections. So finding the virus alone it means it's present on the farm, but it doesn't necessarily cause the disease as in congenital tremor without the lesions being present in the nervous system.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So what did you find in this case then? So in this case, the lesions were typical of APPV infection in spinal cord and brain, and we also detected the virus in in tissues as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and and the um histopathology was also supportive. Yes, great. So can you talk a bit more about this diagnosis then? So about this this virus, APPV?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so as I say, we didn't know what it was for a long time, and then it was found um almost by serendipity in America. They were doing a PERS project, and this virus popped out, and it was thought to be, it could be it's a pestivirus, and we know pesti viruses and other species do this sort of teratogenic type fetal infection, uh, neurological disease, um, BBD in cattle, border disease in sheep. We've got classical swine fever, we already know causes um congenital tremor, which is also a pesti virus. So it was a candidate right from the start. Um, it's very difficult to uh actually isolate the virus. So the full testing virus uh into pigs to cause disease hasn't fully been done because it's difficult to get the virus, but homogenative uh tissues or blood, it has been done and it reproduces the disease in pigs. Um, and then about a year later, we knew this was possible. APBB, we could find it by PCR. We were able to develop a test and find it at um our laboratory in Weybridge. Um similar type of virus, though different strains, so it's not exactly the same all over the world. But okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and so we think it's endemic and thought to be widespread in the directory.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and it's and we've been able to do some retrospective work, and it was the cause of congenital tremor cases prior to the knowledge of the virus. We've been able to go back and do that. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so um, and so we see these outbreaks of congenital tremor type A2, i.e. caused by APPV, when previously naive herds are infected and and and without other clinical signs. Uh, and as you mentioned, it's pretty widespread across the world.
SPEAKER_00It's widespread across the world and it's widespread in the UK, and often we don't see them, we don't get huge numbers of them coming through the laboratory because people can diagnose it from clinical signs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um so we don't have a handle on how many herds have it, yeah, just because we don't see them coming through.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's totally fair enough. Um, and my understanding is that we don't fully understand the epidemiology, but but we um think that most congenital trauma-affected litters are thought to result from in utero infection during early pregnancy due to acute infection of the sow.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so that would fit with the other pesti viruses we do know things about. So um, usually to cause those brain lesions, we're looking at the early stage of gestation and probably um before the piglet becomes um immunocompetent, so possibly before 70 days of gestation would be what we're looking at.
SPEAKER_01Okay, also important to say that it's not zoonotic and it's non-notifiable. The other aspect about APPV, which sounds perhaps similar to other petiviruses, is that when infection occurs in the non-pregnant animal, uh it's usually subclinical, which is quite interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yes, probably a transient subclinical infection that no one really notices. Right, okay.
SPEAKER_01And then you hinted at this earlier, but it tends to affect liters from first parity cells only. Do we know why that is?
SPEAKER_00Well, the assumption would be that it's a naive animal that's not met the virus before. Um, so it's not and it hasn't got any immunity. And in this case where the parity 2 uh sows were producing CT pigs, most likely it's because they just didn't happen to come across it at the time when their colleagues did during the previous farrowing. So that's the assumption. Um and that that I don't think there's any reason it isn't just going to be gilts that have the problem, it's just down to immunity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so and actually then it's quite interesting that we know that from the previous batch of these pigs, if 80% had litters affected with congenital tremors as priority one animals, and it's probably likely that the 20% that had it as party two were the other 20% of that batch.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's the assumption. That's I think that's the sort of working plan as to why this happened. But unfortunately, we it wasn't recorded on the farm, which is a real shame. So we don't know whether these were a successive problem in they had it at parity one and at parity two, which wouldn't we wouldn't expect to happen. Um, or we assume that they didn't have it when they were parity one. But because there are no records, we don't actually know that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and it sounds like records are also helpful for things like for identifying which litters were affected so that you then don't breed from those litters in the future. But but actually that wouldn't that wouldn't have been possible in this case.
SPEAKER_00No, it wouldn't. And that was always the always has been the advice for control was don't keep any pigs from those litters or that whole batch probably as breeding replacements. And it holds, even though we didn't know what the virus was, it still holds true. That's probably the best advice to now is not to keep them because even if they weren't CT pigs, they could actually still be positive for the virus.
SPEAKER_01So I guess that control strategy, though, would go along with um the possibility of persistent infection and immune tolerance being a feature of API. Do we know anything more around that and whether APVV is similar to other pestiviruses in that respect?
SPEAKER_00Interestingly, we probably don't know fully that story. It certainly seems likely that they retain virus in tissues for a long time, although that may not include blood. So by probably some of the studies, by the time they're about eight weeks, it can't the virus can't be detected in blood anymore, which would differ from ruminant pesti viruses. But in tissues, it is still present by PCR. As for persistently infected because of immunotolerance, so they're virus positive and antibody negative, I'm not sure I fully understand that yet. We don't know that that's been shown. So virus could be around for a long time, but whether it's present without antibody, because only recently has there been a test to uh detect antibody. Right. Um, so I think we we still need to know more on that.
SPEAKER_01That's a really good point. That um yeah, the diagnostics for APPV are still so new.
SPEAKER_00They're still not necessarily available to everyone.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. So yeah, I found the same with the bit of reading around the topic, and it does sound like further work would be needed to ascertain whether persistent shedding occurs. Um, and also aspects like us not fully understanding yet how the timing of inuter infection affects clinical outcome on of the offspring.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's kind of assuming it follows other pesti viruses, which is probably true, but I don't think we know the full story.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and sorry to ask, what about the potential for venereal transmission through semen?
SPEAKER_00Okay, again, not known. Um work is has shown that it's present in semen, but Holly Hill, who's done a PhD at Morden, um, she looked at Scottish commercially available semen samples and didn't find the virus. Um, but some workers have found the virus, but that doesn't mean that it's transmitted. So we don't really know the answer to that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so the viral RNA has been detected in in some semen samples, which kind of implies that it could be possible, but but without the experimental infection studies that um we we haven't no one has has proved whether venero infection can occur.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Sounds a complex little virus, doesn't it? Um and so I guess it's interesting that it sounds like you can have kind of two clinical presentations where either you have a naive herd that becomes infected and then and then you would expect congenital tremor-affected piglets in different parities. But actually, because we think that most herds are positive for it, you see more congenital tremor-affected litters at P1, and then um fewer as you kind of go along.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think that's fair, and it would be a reason to, if gilts are coming onto the farm fresh, to acclimatise them, so they have contact with older pigs on the unit. So hopefully they get a bit bugged up, if indeed that's how it works, but it does seem to be that's the case.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. So so that's a for producers who are who are bringing gilts onto the farm after your um isolation period, you would then slowly want to introduce them to the bugs on the farm, for example, by introducing an older sow to that group, so that hopefully they were exposed and then immune to the pathogens on the farm before they then became pregnant and could have an effective litter. Yes. Okay, that makes sense. I think we are almost ready to wrap up then. And I just wanted to get your thoughts around take-home messages. So, take-home message for the farm in this case, what would you say was important for them to take away from this investigation?
SPEAKER_00It would have been really helpful to have better recording. Um, we could have understood the epidemiology far more and maybe have a definitive answer for some of those questions. We're just sort of assuming that what may have happened, and it would be to their benefit to have recorded if they're keeping any replacements. I don't know whether they were planning on that, but yeah, that would have been but very good that they um sought help. So that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and and very comforting, I imagine, um, that this wasn't something new or re-emerging in terms of an animal to do throughout the days. But their mum does. Yes. Great, and then um in terms of take-home points, then for vets listening to this podcast, what would you say those were?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would say if you hear from one of your clients that there are tremoring pigs, you really have to first up consider classical swine fever. You need to do that triage. Um, and if you're still either not comfortable, you can always triage it again with us or report it if you're strongly suspect. But we're always going to triage uh submissions, so pick up the phone if you want it investigated, or if you're not sure.
SPEAKER_01Great. So if you're suspicious of classical twine feed, that that would go um straight to our field colleagues, or um, if you would like kind of support in um weighing that up, then you can absolutely call one of our Between investigation centres. And um if you're happy that you're not suspicious of notifiable disease, we can then and we're happy as well, we can then support you to investigate cases of congenital tremor further, and that could be particularly important if there's something unusual about the clinical presentation. And I guess also um, yeah, those important steps to managing congenital tremor due to APPV, so thinking about records, thinking about the acclimatisation of incoming stock. Um, but I think it would also be really nice to hear from our listeners who are managing these cases with their clients in the field to tell us their thoughts and strategies and and particularly around these aspects to APPV that we're still unsure about. I think that would be really nice to hear our listeners' experience around those.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's great. I mean it's the virus has only been known for about 10 years. We've come a long way, really, in the amount of work that has been done with diagnostic tests and understanding the epidemiology, so there's still a little bit of a way to go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and that'll be nice um as to to kind of track the research and follow the research as it unfolds to learn even more about yes epidemiology, particularly. Yeah, great. Um, do you have anything to add then, Cornelia?
SPEAKER_00No, I don't think so. Just um any interesting cases, let us know. Perfect. That's what we're here for.
SPEAKER_01Um so all that's left to say then is our thank you. So thank you very much to the submissive veteran farmer for this case, as well as for all of the previous cases that have allowed us to build this knowledge base around congenital tremors. Thank you also to everyone at APHA who's contributed to these investigations over the years. And I think these cases have often been investigated with that partnership at um with SOUC and also Morden.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and Weybridge, our colleagues in Virology, absolutely key to this investigation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally. Um, and finally, thank you to you, our listeners. So we'd love to hear what you think of the podcast and what you'd like us to discuss in future episodes. But thank you for joining us, Cornelia, and see you next time.