Leap in May vaccines
The Norwegian salmon industry bought 16.0 million doses of vaccines in May, up from 12.3 million in the same month last year, according to statistics released by Pharmaq today.
Over the past three years there has been an increased level of vaccination in May. This is explained by an early start of S0 vaccination, some companies starting already in second half of May, while the vaccination season for 2016’s S1s is now considered finished.
In the period September 2015 through May 2016, the total purchase of vaccines was 178.5 million doses, compared to 177.4 million doses for the S1s 2015, (and 180.9 million doses for the S1s 2014).
As part of the vaccine sales in May is reserved for vaccination of S0s-2016, the May sales split must be further evaluated, according to Pharmaq. However, based on total vaccine sales, the company concludes that there have been no major changes in number of S1s- 2016 compared to S1s-2015, when the actual S1-release was 158 million (source: Kontali analyse).
Total sales of vaccines will never give an exact picture of the actual number of smolt released, but it is considered as a strong indicator. There are some uncertainties related to the split in vaccination of S0s compared to S1s in September, and vaccine purchase in May intended for S0-vaccination.
Additional factors are the possibility of unused vaccines and variation in loss rate between generations in the period from vaccination to sea entry.
May sales of vaccines against 6 diseases were 200,000 doses of ISA-vaccine and 4.5 million doses of PD-vaccine.
No trout vaccines were sold in May, although 17.4 million have been sold in the last 12 months, compared to 333.6 million doses for salmon.
