Vaccination with robots: ‘Robovac’ will be useful in preventing tuberculosis in cattle

British inventor Tony Cholerton has announced new possibilities in preventing diseases in wildlife and livestock.

British inventor Tony Cholerton has announced new possibilities in preventing diseases in wildlife and livestock. He has created a robot-operated vaccination device called ‘Robovac’, which is capable of vaccinating animals quickly and safely without human assistance.

The first successful application of this device was at the London Zoo. A shy tigress named ‘Sinta’ was so timid that she would not even eat in front of her keepers. Cholerton invented Robovac while looking for a way to vaccinate her without putting her under stress. The device was operated by remote control from the next room and the tigress was vaccinated while she was eating, which she almost did not notice.

According to Cholerton, the advanced automated version of this technology, ‘Autovac’, could solve a major problem in wildlife management. It could be particularly effective in vaccinating badgers (a type of badger), which are known to be responsible for the spread of bovine tuberculosis in England.

Currently, badger vaccination is expensive and time-consuming. This requires the use of traps to catch badgers and long periods of confinement and injection by trained workers. However, the inventor claims that using Autovac, it is possible to vaccinate about 20 badgers in a colony in a few minutes without any human intervention.

Tony Cholerton said, ‘My dream is for scientists and farmers to use it. It will prove that badger vaccination is effective and that it is possible to solve the problem of bovine tuberculosis.’

News from The Guardian.