Latest Pig Industry News
Quick, Safe and Effective Vaccine Delivery Offered
CANADA - The Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture says, in the hands of skilled personnel, needle-free injectors offer a quick, safe and effective means of administering vaccines and medications to swine, writes Bruce Cochrane.  Farm-Scape is sponsored by
Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork FarmScape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork. |
Needless injectors use a high velocity blast of compressed air or carbon dioxide rather than conventional needles to administer vaccines and medications.
Under the federal-provincial Growing Forward Program the Manitoba government is offering pork producers up to two thousand dollars to offset some of the cost of purchasing a needless injector.
Dr Phil Willson, an adjunct professor with the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan, recalls research he conducted three to five years ago showed skilled personnel using these needle-free injectors can administer vaccines quickly, effectively and safely.
Dr Phil Willson-University of Saskatchewan
The advantages of getting rid of needles are several.
Of course they're a sharps biohazard and this requires special disposal so veterinarians for example have special containers that these are collected in and then they have to be disposed of in a proper fashion.
To do that on the farm or the production unit is an extra step that you have to be involved in.
Second of course needles are safety risk for accidental injection of staff or other people that are working with the pigs.
And needles in the herd itself can be a way of spreading infectious diseases.
There have been examples shown of spreading PRRS and strep suis so they can spread disease and then we hope this doesn't happen again in the future but there have been of course cases of broken needles ending up in the meat product occasionally.
Dr Willson notes, in his experience, properly trained personnel can use these devices with little disturbance so they appear to be easier on the pigs and they provided a very good response to the vaccines, perhaps even better than conventional administration, as long as the equipment was used properly.
ThePigSite News Desk
More of the latest Pig Industry News
CME: Changes for Beef, Pork & Poultry Supplies
Third TOPIGS Import into China in Three Months
FAO Food Price Index Rebounds in January
OleoServ Takes over Harles & Jentzsch Assets- US Pork Export Forecast is Unchanged
Nutreco Achieves Excellent Progress in 2011
Animal Welfare: The Right Thing to Do
New Zealand Pork Seeks New CEO
2011 Pork Imports Higher Than a Year Ago- New Way to Map Drought and Water Use
