August 11, 2015
MSD launches coccidiosis vaccine in Latin America
MSD Animal Health has launched its FORTEGRA® vaccine in Latin America to protect broilers against coccidiosis, a parasitic disease of the intestinal tract.
FORTEGRA contains the coccidiosis strains found in broiler houses, including precocious and classic strains of E. maxima, and results in faster immunity and a broader protection, compared to conventional vaccines.
FORTEGRA is effective in controlling all relevant strains of coccidiosis in broilers, including E. acervulina, E. mivati, E. maxima and E. tenella. The vaccine simultaneously exposes flocks to two strains of the E. maxima species of coccidiosis, one of them a precocious strain that stimulates earlier, stronger immunity. Earlier immunity allows more time for compensatory growth and can prevent performance losses.
"Vaccination is an important alternative for controlling coccidiosis in broiler flocks, as using in-feed anticoccidials allows the disease to progress at a subclinical level that is difficult to detect but can result in poor growth, uniformity, feed conversion and breast meat yield," said Dr. Fernando Vargas, global technical director, MSD Animal Health.
A pen study demonstrated that FORTEGRA protects more birds and at a faster rate, compared to a conventional vaccine and a control group. 14 days after vaccination, both demonstrated significant partial protection (78% and 69% of birds protected, respectively) compared to a control group (12% of birds protected).
At 17 days after vaccination, the FORTEGRA sample demonstrated significantly better protection (92%) than the conventional vaccine (59%) and the control group (16%).
At 21 days post-vaccination, FORTEGRA continued to protect more than 90% of birds, compared to 78% for the conventional vaccine and 3% for the control group.
FORTEGA also resulted in lower lesion scores compared to the conventional and control groups at 14, 17 and 21 days post-vaccination. Low-level intestinal lesions caused by subclinical coccidiosis can occur late in the flock cycle and can have adverse effects on weight gain, days to market, feed conversion and meat yield.