A new hog vaccine is designed to eliminate the need for antibiotics in treating post weaning diarrhea.
Coliprotec is an oral vaccine administered through the water supply, said Amy Friesen, a research scientist at the Saskatchewan Research Council.
The council is producing the vaccine, developed in Quebec by Prevtec Microbia Inc.
“We’re feeding them a vaccine isolated from the natural micro flora of animals so it’s using a more natural product that reduces our dependence on antibiotics,” Friesen said.
In the past, antibiotics were the only way to treat this common disorder in pigs, she added.
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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently approved the production and marketing of the vaccine.
Post weaning diarrhea in hogs can spread easily and result in significant losses for producers.
About one pig in four will be affected by the disease, which may account for mortality rates as high as 10 percent in affected populations.
Canada raises about 30 million pigs a year, with pig exports accounting for $7.5 billion a year.
John Morris Fairbrother and Eric Nadeau of the University of Montreal’s veterinary medicine faculty developed the vaccine, the first live animal vaccine created in Canada in a decade.
