It has been injecting the vaccine with semen so it’s put into the uterus where it can convey immunity to piglets.
For gilts, it doesn’t seem to work with the first litter, but does for subsequent litters.
Dr. Heather Wilson, a research scientist with VIDO, said “we're still very much in the preliminary research-based phases but we're making some good advances.
“We're learning which formulations work better and we're improving that every time. Ideally, we would want to administer the vaccine only once so that a gilt . . . would be protected and her piglets would be protected.
“Right now, we need a few doses so she's not protected in the first pregnancy but she is with the second dose and the second pregnancy and we need to keep improving that so that we have a single dose protective vaccine.
“Over the next year or so we are going to administer the vaccine with many different nanoparticle formulations to see which vaccine formulations are the most protective.
“Especially we'll actually look at what's protective to the gilt and the sow as well as what gets passed along into the colostrum to protect the piglets.
“So, there's kind of two things we have to focus on, the sow and the passive protection to the piglets.”
