Dairy farmers can detect parasitic infections in minutes with Irish tech

An Irish pharmaceutical company based in Kilkenny has developed a new technology that will help dairy farmers to diagnose parasitic infections in a few minutes. AgriLand reports that Clare Hughes, from CFpharma, showcased the new innovation at the “Advancing Agri-Tech in Ireland” held in Kilkenny a few days ago. CFpharma, which specialises in both human […]

An Irish pharmaceutical company based in Kilkenny has developed a new technology that will help dairy farmers to diagnose parasitic infections in a few minutes.

AgriLand reports that Clare Hughes, from CFpharma, showcased the new innovation at the “Advancing Agri-Tech in Ireland” held in Kilkenny a few days ago.

CFpharma, which specialises in both human and animal health, described the technology as a “global solution.”

According to her, the technology will significantly reduce the time between a diagnosis and a solution from days to “minutes.”

The technology will address the current system of collecting samples by farmers and taking them to a laboratory for analysis, then getting the veterinary doctor to treat the animal(s).

However, “The firm’s model can drastically reduce that period and the losses incurred during it.”

“This takes days, and in general, in the meantime, the parasites have gone from one animal to another, you’ve lost milk production, you’ve had to overfeed your animal. You’re basically losing money,” Hughes was quoted in AgriLand.

“What we propose to do, and what we have done, is that we take the sample, put it through a cassette in a reader, and that cassette and the reader take an image,” Hughes outlined.

“This is huge because it’s information that can be used and brought directly to the farmer so they can treat [the animal] instantaneously.

“The health of an animal is paramount. It hugely affects inputs and outputs. The impact of parasitic infections globally isin  billions of euro. We wanted to come up with a global solution,” she explained.