7.8 What specific benefits are there in the Enterisol® Ileitis oral vaccine approach?

The vaccine prevents pigs from getting Ileitis which affects many pigs on many farms, produces important benefits for animal health and welfare. There are several important benefits to using the oral route of administration, such as convenience, reduction of labour costs and stress to the animals.

In detail:

• Reduction of animal stresses (pigs get agitated), human time (major staff costs) and effort (loss of time and space) due to numerous individual injections.
• Avoidance of problems such as difficulties with full compliance (some pigs miss the injection) and actual administrator injuries (handling and foot injuries, not to forget injecting yourself as well).
• Elimination of possible transmission of major blood-borne infections such as PRRS virus via multi-use vaccination needles.
• Reduction of the primary source of concern among meat retailers, namely injection site reactions and retention of needles in carcasses.
• The non-necessaty for an adjuvant. These are commonly used in injectable vaccines and are capable of causing persistent necrotising lesions in pig muscle.
• Absence of immuno-potentiation of latent porcine circovirus 2 infections to a state where it can cause the emerging post-weaning multi-systemic wasting syndrome.
• Reduction of antibiotic usage because of the long lasting protection provided against Lawsonia intracellularis.
• Reduction of the negative effects of proliferative enteropathy on feed nutrient absorption, particularly amino acid uptake, across a whole group of pigs.