Canada May Face Veterinary Drug Shortage In 2022

The Canadian Animal Health Institute recently issued a warning of impending difficulty in obtaining many veterinary medications.

A 2017 change in veterinary drug regulation limited what drugs could be accessed in Canada and veterinarians are preparing to feel the fallout. Rising shipping costs and pandemic-related shortages are also not helping matters of accessibility, nor is the uptick of penicillin use in human medicine.

Canada imports nearly 95 percent of the vaccines used in veterinary medicine. Accessibility of drugs is a major concern for Canadian vets that is expected to become more problematic. One proposed solution involves allowing for the purchase of pharmaceuticals that are approved in other jurisdictions, like the United States and European Union.

Read more at the Western Producer.

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Fort Erie Race Track Will Require Spectators To Be Fully Vaccinated

On Sept. 22, the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium (FELRC) will require all spectators to be fully vaccinated to attend live or simulcast racing at Fort Erie Race Track. Provincial regulations outlined in the Reopening Ontario (A Flexible Response to COVID-19) Act, 2020, require that all spectators be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend horse racing venues across Ontario.

“Following suit with the provincial government regulations, all our fans must be fully vaccinated if they intend to come and watch live racing at our venue,” said Tom Valiquette, FELRC's chief financial officer. “This will also apply to anyone who intends to watch simulcast racing at the Racebook throughout the week as well as the weekend.”

Government regulations stipulate that a fully vaccinated person is one that has received a full series of the vaccine authorized by Health Canada. This would include any combination of the vaccines. A person is also considered fully vaccinated if they have received one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine not authorized by Health Canada, followed by one dose of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine authorized by Health Canada. Additionally, a person is fully vaccinated if they received three doses of the vaccine not authorized by Health Canada and received their final dose of the COVID-19 vaccine 14 days before providing proof.

Proof of vaccination includes a paper or emailed receipt provided by the Ontario government. Individuals can print or download their vaccine receipt from the provincial booking portal. Additionally, individuals needing support in obtaining their vaccination receipt can also call the Provincial Vaccine Contact Centre at 1-833-943-3900.

Spectators that are 18 years old or younger are exempt from the government's mandate to be fully vaccinated to attend live racing.

Medical exemptions will be allowed for a multitude of reasons and as outlined by Ontario's Ministry of Health. One valid exemption is if the individual suffered an allergic reaction related to a component in the vaccine. The second valid exemption is if the individual suffers a heart condition after the first dose of the vaccine. Individuals must provide written documentation completed by a physician or registered nurse stating the medical reason for not being full vaccinated as well as the effective time-period for the medical reason.

All Fort Erie Race Track employees, contractors and horsepeople will be required to be fully vaccinated, or they must enter into an enhanced screening program for the foreseeable future.

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New Mexico State University To Study New Method Of Mustang Population Control

Throughout the United States, wild horses still roam through the wide-open spaces. While they may be wild and free, they come at a cost to taxpayers, as much as $1 billion from 2019 to 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

That's an opportunity for Wildlife Protection Management, Inc., or WPM, to be a leader in helping the government with humane ways to control population growth and keep the horses, and other wildlife, healthy. Thanks to a $256,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, WPM will work with New Mexico State University faculty to manage the data they've been collecting.

Roch Hart, WPM's CEO, used NMSU's entrepreneur and business incubator Arrowhead Center services to work through the NSF grant application process. WPM had already grown by using several of the Arrowhead Center programs.

Hart first attended the six-week AgSprint, a cohort-based business accelerator that deepened his understanding of the market and future customer needs. He then participated in Arrowhead's Technology Incubator to build the WPM's first vaccine-delivery prototype. The prototype, attached to an alfalfa feeding station, remotely implants radio-frequency identification, or RFID, chips, vaccines and contraceptives into horses.

“We have been highly successful with the RFID. Better than we had hoped,” Hart said. “If we could cut costs by not having to implant every horse with a chip, then we could cut costs considerably. For that, facial recognition technology was the next avenue to explore. New Mexico Small Business Assistance helped us go in that direction first, which helped us to move forward with the NSF grant.”

Hart also used Arrowhead Center's NM Federal and State Technology, or NM FAST, partnership program that provides help to businesses seeking federal funding through the Small Business Innovation Research grants.

“Hart has seen a lot of growth through using the range of programs at Arrowhead Center,” said Del Mackey, senior economic development officer at Arrowhead Center. “The AgSprint program helped him define the need for the tech. NMSBA helped him take it in a new direction, and the NSF SBIR Phase I grant will help him validate the feasibility of using facial recognition alongside the RFID for the identification of not only wild horses but also feral pigs and deer.”

“We do hope to take this technology for horses to other species and scale that technology up. This grant certainly helps that traction,” Hart said.

More traction for WPM will come through the collaboration with NMSU's College of Engineering Associate Professor Laura Boucheron. With the support of a graduate student, Boucheron will spend a year dissecting WPM's data and creating an effective method of animal recognition through videos and images.

“While they have RFID chips, the horses might have recognizable patterns on their faces or flanks or even scars that we can use to build an algorithm that detects individual animals,” Boucheron said. “The ultimate goal is to recognize individual animals based on videos or images and match them up with their RFID identification.”

Boucheron said the collaboration with WPM through Arrowhead Center allows her research to see different applications for her work and help with the inception of entrepreneurial activities.

“What we do can have a direct impact on a problem with the horse population,” she said. “It's something that has quite the real-world applicability.”

Read more at New Mexico State University.

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Woodbine Hosting Pop-Up COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic For Local Community, Backstretch Workers

Woodbine Entertainment is proud to host a Pop-Up COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic at Woodbine Racetrack, which is located in a 'hot spot', beginning on Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 10 a.m. for the Rexdale Community.

The vaccine clinic, which is supported by the North Etobicoke Community Cluster Partners, will operate for a minimum of three days and is open to individuals 18 years and older in 2021 and living in 'hot spot' communities in M9V and M9W.

“We are very proud and grateful to be able to host this much needed pop-up clinic at Woodbine Racetrack for the Rexdale community,” said Jim Lawson, CEO, Woodbine Entertainment. “We look forward to working with our community partners over the coming days to deliver a positive experience that will benefit people throughout Rexdale.”

The Pop-Up COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic will also be open to frontline essential workers who provide daily care to the horses stabled at Woodbine Racetrack.

“These workers are critical to the wellbeing of more than 1,000 horses and obviously cannot work from home. Many of them live in dormitories on our property and in the surrounding areas,” said Lawson.

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