Farmscape for August 31, 2011   (Episode 3655)

The regional marketing and technical support manager with AcuShot says the foot and mouth disease outbreak in South Korea has heightened the level of interest in needle free injection technology.

Needle-free injection uses high velocity and pressure to create an opening, seven to ten times smaller than that of a conventional needle, to instantaneously force the veterinary compound being administered through the skin.

AcuShot regional marketing and technical support manager Mike Agar says incentive programs being offered by Manitoba and Saskatchewan to help cover the cost of adopting the technology have built awareness, other provinces are considering offering incentives and the technology is gaining international attention.

Clip-Mike Agar-AcuShot Inc:
South Korea in particular had an FMD or foot and mouth disease outbreak here over the last year and because of the advent of what we call marker vaccines, really effective vaccines for foot and mouth, you don't have to destroy these animals in the face of these outbreaks.

You can vaccinate it and actually differentiate because of the markering and the biologics of an animal that's been vaccinated versus one that's actually a carrier of the disease.

That outbreak actually facilitated the uptake of our equipment in quite a rapid fashion because you've got this mass vaccination of animals, you don't have to deal with the sharps, you're certainly not going to transfer disease when you go with the AcuShot device, needle-free and it's just kind of flown out the door.

The situation down there is now our Korean distributors have so much product in the market and doing well with it that they're looking to expand their capabilities to a larger scope in the Asian marketplace.

Agar says pork producers in China have also started adopting the technology and the product has just been granted patent recognition in that nation.

He acknowledges the equipment isn't cheap but, as has been the case with other technologies such as ultrasound and artificial insemination, when people sees others being successful with the technology its hard not to adopt it.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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