Remote Learning
MSD Animal Health’s support for vaccinations
THE summer season proves to be an extremely busy time for fish farmers as they commence vaccination of their fish stocks. As well as the usual pressures, producers face an added challenge this year with farm visits from industry experts and health professionals extremely limited.
However, to ensure fish farmers continue to receive vital support throughout the period, the MSD Animal Health UK aquaculture team has been adapting their service offering to help their customers continue with ‘business as usual’. We caught up with Liam Doherty, technical and account manager at MSD Animal Health UK.
Bespoke training webinars
“With vaccination just around the corner, we have quickly adapted services so that we are still able to help our customers with their monitoring programmes and vaccination,” says Liam.
“From mid-June, we will be launching our first pre-vaccination training webinars which act as a refresher course for customers, highlighting best practice techniques to optimise vaccination accuracy prior to the season starting. During the presentations, we will also show customers the impact of what can happen when things go wrong, for example the knock-on effects and financial implications of poor vaccination technique.
Liam explains that webinars can be tailored to individual customer requirements, and can act as a platform for producers, staff, and the MSD Animal Health UK team to share best practice.
“There is a lot more to vaccination than just improving accuracy. Looking at injection points, correct pressure, and ensuring needles are not blunt to avoid causing internal trauma is also really important.
“You could have 100% accuracy, but if the needles are too long, during an internal assessment you will see that this has caused internal trauma. These webinars help to remind producers of all the different aspects of vaccination which need to be considered before the event.”
Throughout the summer months, MSD
Animal Health UK are still providing the Fish Health Vaccination app (previously known as AQUAVAC® Monitor), which is a monitoring programme that audits vaccination safety and efficacy throughout the production cycle. However, the audits will be carried out remotely rather than on-site via the Fish Health App and also new technology methods which the team are currently trialling.
Virtual assessments set to take the place of onsite visits
As well as webinars focusing on pre- vaccination, MSD Animal Health UK are also launching pre-transfer assessment webinars to look at safety aspects of the vaccine and to help producers profile local reactions of fish.
The intention of these webinars is to give producers more of an understanding of the whole vaccination process and to ensure they are prepared for the season ahead. To accompany these training webinars, the team has also been working on new ways to carry out vaccination assessments remotely.
“We have conducted a trial with one customer using Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp to see how these assessments can work remotely. Using the computer or phone camera, we were able to watch individuals on-farm carry out the pre-transfer audit while it was taking place. We were then able to view the footage
and write down our local reactions scoring,” explains Liam.
From conducting this initial trial, Liam and the MSD Animal Health team were able to assess how effective the assessments were, and what additional resources were needed to improve this process further. As a result, the team are trialling new virtual technology which they will use to carry out accurate pre-transfer assessments and vaccination audits with their customers this summer.
Combining remote tools to provide a total service
Although every farm site has dedicated health professionals present, Liam hopes this new level of support will help customers become more experienced in how to carry out autopsies, and provide education on what the MSD Animal Health UK team look for when assessing fish health pre, during, and post vaccination.
‘Many of our customers already use the Fish Health Vaccination App, which is another remote way of working. Usually, we would conduct the audits and input data into the app, however with this added training now available, once producers are comfortable with vaccination accuracy points, they can use the app on our behalf and send the reports back to us to review.
“With all these services combined, we will be able to cover 80% of our usual work, just missing the additional 20% of face-to-face meetings. We look forward to beginning these virtual assessments and will keep our customers updated on our progress,” concludes Liam.
If you would like to attend a training webinar, or would like to discuss how virtual assessments can be carried out on your farm, contact your local MSD Animal Health UK representative.
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