SRUC: Using vaccines to prevent disease in cattle and sheep; concepts, strategies and challenges – Webinar

Date: 12 June 2024
Time: 7-8pm
Location: Online – register using this link

Description:
Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective methods of disease prevention and control in livestock production. It addresses key issues in health and welfare of livestock while also helping to address some of the big challenges facing the sector today, including reduced use of antimicrobials, increased production efficiency leading to impacts on NetZero targets and reduced environmental contamination which positively impacts on biodiversity.

Vaccination is not a stand-alone tool in disease control and must be seen as one element in a network of measures which include breed selection, nutrition, housing design, management and biosecurity and, if these should break down and disease occurs, accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment with chemotherapeutics.

This talk will introduce the concepts of disease prevention by vaccination in cattle and sheep and discuss current options and strategies for vaccination, as well as some of the current challenges in using this strategy to control disease.

Speaker: Alasdair Nisbet
Professor Alasdair Nisbet is Deputy Director and former Head of the Vaccines and Diagnostics Department at the Moredun Research Institute near Edinburgh. He is also Chief Scientific Officer of Wormvax Australia Pty Ltd, a company which manufactures a vaccine to control H. contortus, and is an Honorary Professor within the University of Glasgow’s College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences. Over the last 20 years he has been part of a team successfully developing novel vaccines to control parasites in livestock and this has been achieved through fruitful collaborations with academic, public sector and stakeholder groups worldwide (e.g. USDA, NFUS, Meat and Livestock Australia).