By Bruce Cochrane
The Corporate Veterinarian with Olymel says needle free injection offers a number of advantages.
Needle free injection uses high pressure to blast compounds through the skin, replacing the use of needles.
Dr. Jeff Bergermann, the Corporate Veterinarian with Olymel, told those on hand last week for Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2017 in Saskatoon the technology offers several advantages and is most efficient when vaccinating or processing large numbers of animals at one time.
Dr. Jeff Bergermann-Olymel:
Safety would be one of the big advantages of using a needle free device.
It improves food safety.
Number one, we produce food and number two it actually improves the safety of the workers working with the device.
It eliminates needle pokes.
It's a fast and efficient way of administering the vaccine.
The vaccination process actually takes .3 seconds to happen so it's a very quick process.
It's relatively pain free.
A lot of the work done in human medicine actually says that it's quite bit less painful than an injection.
Then there's also the environmentally friendly aspect of it.
You're not using needles, you're not throwing out syringes, that aspect of it would be the advantages.
Dr. Bergermann notes work with humans and lab animals has shown using free technology can improve the function of the vaccine by getting it to larger numbers of immune cells triggering a better immune response.
He acknowledges needle free equipment is more complex with a lot of moving parts that require regular repair and maintenance and training in the use and upkeep of the equipment is also needed.
Source: Farmscape