A research scientist with VIDO-InterVac is confident a promising new approach to vaccinating sows will be of particular interest to semen suppliers. Researchers with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization are evaluating the delivery of intrauterine vaccines administered to sows and gilts along with the semen during artificial insemination to protect against a variety of diseases.
Dr. Heather Wilson, a research scientist with VIDO-InterVac, says research so far shows the intrauterine vaccine is having a positive protective effect in weaner piglets against PED.
Clip-Dr. Heather Wilson-VIDO-InterVac:
It's an unusual idea so I think it's going to be interesting to try to get the producers excited by it and interested and willing to take it up. If we can show that it really works well, it might be something that the semen producers could get excited about.
They could maybe consider marketing the semen by promoting excellent offspring while also protecting the sow or the gilt against disease. It's early days right now. We're doing several different trials and with each trial we change something, how much we administer, what adjuvants we're using, which antigens which means which diseases we're targeting.
We're also playing around with administering the vaccine at first estrus, second estrus, third estrus, that kind of thing. It's early days but we're learning something new every time we run the trials. If eventually we can show some really good disease protection, specifically against PRRS, I think there will be a tremendous amount of interest for the producers to protect their breeding stock.
Once we're at that stage, where we have some very solid preliminary data, we can start to get some interest from commercial vaccine developers and see where we can go from there to get it to the producers.
Source : Farmscape