Agricultural News
New Vaccine Builds BRD Immunity In Young Calves
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 19:27:38 CDT
Bovine Respiratory Disease - known as BRD is a big problem for the beef cattle. BRD - as the disease is commonly called - is the leading cause of death in pre-wean calves 3 weeks or older. One company has come up with a new product that may help producers battle BRD in your youngest animals.
Merck Animal health has come up with a new product that will allow help producers to vaccinate calves as young as 1 week of age for BRD. Dr. Brent Meyer - beef cattle technical services manager for Merck Animal Health - says the new vaccine - called Once PMH IN - is the only intranasal vaccine to deliver dual bacterial pneumonia protection in healthy beef and dairy cattle.
"Once PMH IN aides in the control of the respiratory disease caused by Mannheimia haemolytica and the prevention of the disease caused by Pasteurella multocida," Meyer said. "The intranasal vaccination helps stimulate at strong immune response because vaccine antigens are delivered directly to the mucosal surface in the nose, a major site of immune response in cattle."
Dr. Terry Engelken is an associate professor at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine and he was involved with research evaluating the new vaccine.
"Our research studies compared Once PMH IN to a commercially available Mannheimia vaccine that was given subcutaneously or under the skin," Engelken said. "The results from these trials demonstrated that at least in these young calves that are given a intranasal administration of Once PMH IN, these calves performed better in terms of a lower body temperature and better weight gain compared to calves that were given a subcutaneous Mannheimia vaccine."
Researchers also measured inflammatory protein level response. Dr. Engelken explains this can be used to gauge the level of stress that a vaccine causes the calf.
"If a vaccine is irritating to these young calves, the animal will have an increase in inflammatory protein levels and as a result of that they simply don't grow as fast and that is because the calves protein is being directed away from animal growth and instead toward this unwanted vaccine reaction," Engelken said. "So what we found the calves given Once PMH IN, they had a dramatically reduced inflammatory protein level response and consequently showed improved average daily gain."
Dr. Engelken says the advantages come from the intranasal vaccine working at the point of attack against BRD pathogens - directly in the nose and upper respiratory tract - to provide protection.
According to Dr. Meyer with Merck, the intranasal vaccination administration is easy and they have developed some teaching aides to help producers.
For specific guidance on BRD vaccines - consult with your herd veterinarian. Click Here for more information on Once PMH IN
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