Farmscape for September 10, 2007  (Episode 2585)

A Red Deer, Alberta based swine veterinarian reports a relatively new antibacterial, approved for use in swine and cattle, is proving highly effective in treating swine respiratory disease.

Swine respiratory diseases can be caused by either bacterial or viral organisms.

Draxxin, distributed by Pfizer Animal Health, is the first of a new class of antimicrobials, called triamilides, developed specifically for veterinary use.

Dr. Chris Misutka, with Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer, notes the severity of swine respiratory disease symptoms will vary according to the disease and when you see a combination of two or more the effects are a lot greater.

Clip-Dr. Chris Misutka-Prairie Swine Health Services

The product's been available for less than a year now.

We've used quite a bit of it both in treating active disease in herds and I work with a number of high health herds here so we use it often to help animals acclimatize from high health herds into conventional health herds.

It concentrates quite predominantly in the lungs so it is very effective against diseases that cause respiratory infections in swine.

It's labelled against Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae and Pasteurella but we also see that it's effective against some of these other bacterial agents such as Mycoplasma and Haemophilus parasuis for example.

One of the big advantages to this product is that it's effective on a single injection and so that helps with implementation.

We often have scenarios in the barns where labour is tight and getting back and injecting pigs on an ongoing basis is sometimes a challenge so the effectiveness from a single injection would be its first selling feature.

The other advantage to this product would be its broad spectrum of action.

Dr. Misutka stresses we can't  underestimate the importance of being able to recognize sick animals quickly and being able to treat them properly.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council