Home  /  Hand vaccination and the AEV-8: what changes?

Criterion	Hand vaccination	AEV-8
Who does the work	A dedicated vaccination crew. Where the facility has no crew of its own, one has to be found, booked and brought in for the season.	The facility's own shift staff run it. One operator per two heads, placing the fish only; four people on the AEV-8. No crew to find, no dates to secure, no outside personnel to bring in.
Crew for the same output	Reaching the output of the AEV-8 by hand injection takes a crew about three times the size, kept on for as long as vaccination continues.	Four operators. Approximately 15,000 fish per hour and about 120,000 fish in an eight-hour shift, in the standard AEV-8 configuration.
Dose	Set on each syringe; as the shift goes on, keeping it there depends on the vaccinator, and it can vary from fish to fish.	All season, the same dose in every fish. Fixed mechanically by the piston stroke, independent of vaccine viscosity, temperature and supply pressure; no calibration needed. The dose on the last day of the season is the dose on the first.
Injection point and depth	Depend on the vaccinator's hand and attention; over a long shift both are likely to vary.	Same point, same depth, in every fish. The fish rests in a holder set once to its size and stays steady as the needle goes in.
Needle between fish	Scale and tissue can build up on the needle; when it is cleaned or changed is left to the vaccinator.	The needle enters every fish clean. After every injection the needle is cleared automatically, while the machine is running and without anyone touching it. Protection against tissue passing from one fish to the next is built into the cycle, not left to anyone's attention.
Operator safety	Hands work next to the needle. Needle-stick injury and accidental self-injection are the two incidents every crew guards against, on every shift.	Hands stay clear of the needle. The fish is placed outside the injection zone, and the operator's hands stay clear of the needle for as long as the machine is running.
Counting and records	Counting is one more job for the crew: kept alongside the work, often by hand, and added up at the end of the shift.	Every vaccinated fish counted, records ready. Automatic counting head by head; one summary panel shows the total while the work is going on. Records stay at the facility; remote monitoring and control can be configured on request.
Several vaccines in one run	One syringe carries one formulation.	Eight heads, up to eight formulations can be run. Each head has its own vaccine feed and its own stroke setting; a change of formulation does not call for recalibration.
Where the work is done	Wherever the crew goes: table, materials and layout are set up again each time.	On land and on the water. Land-based hatcheries and floating platforms at sea cage sites; the delivered volume stays constant under moderate wave motion. Compressed air and electricity only; ready to vaccinate in under an hour once moved.
Fish weight	Small fish are harder to inject by hand; the lower limit is set by the skill of the crew.	From 10 g upward. The lower bound is the point at which immersion vaccination stops and injection begins, so fish can be vaccinated while they are still in the land-based facility.
What the operator learns	Injection technique, built up over seasons and built up again when the crew changes.	Placing the fish. Training is given on site, on the machine supplied: fish placement, monitoring and routine maintenance.

In short. With hand vaccination three things are decided anew every season: who will do the work, how even the dose will be, and how reliable the count will be. On the AEV-8 all three are settled by the machine — the same dose, the same point, a complete count — and the work is done by the facility's own shift staff.

Capacity figures are approximate; output on site varies with species, fish weight and condition, water temperature, facility layout and the experience of the operating crew. Binding figures for a given facility are stated in the quotation.