A new approach being developed by VID0-InterVac for vaccinating sows and gilts, which combines artificial insemination and vaccination, is showing promise.
Researchers with Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan are evaluating the delivery of intrauterine vaccines administered to sows and gilts along with the semen during artificial insemination.
Dr. Heather Wilson, a research scientist with VIDO-InterVac, says diseases being targeted right now impact the piglet including Lawsonia intracellularis and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus.
Clip-Dr. Heather Wilson-VID0-InterVac:
We're going to actually administer the vaccine with the semen during breeding.
What happens is the cervix of the animal is permissive or open during breeding.
They administer a catheter that is into the cervix and that's where they attach a bag of semen and that gets taken up into the animal.
So we would simply inject the vaccine directly into the semen bag, invert it a couple of times to mix it up and then it would be administered directly into the uterus at the time of breeding during breeding.
We're kind of combining two things which I think would be appreciated by the barn staff so there’s definitely that and another key point would be to target the vaccine precisely where it needs to go.
If we can actually protect the uterus, we are hopeful that we can prevent a lot of the fetal deaths and prevent the disease from actually taking hold in the sows and the gilts.
So, if we protect the site of infection, I think it would be absolutely ideal.
Dr. Wilson says it's still early days but the preliminary findings show that indeed the intrauterine vaccine provides protection to the weaner piglets from PEDv once they suckle.
Click here to see more...