Potential remote drug delivery failures due to temperature-dependent viscosity and drug-loss of aqueous and emulsion-based fluids

The ability to inject wild animals from a distance using remote drug delivery systems (RDDS) is one of the most effective and humane practices in wildlife management. Several factors affect successful administration drugs RDDS. For example, temperature-dependent viscosity change aqueous (Newtonian) or water-in-oil emulsion (non-Newtonian) fluids, commonly used tranquilizer adjuvant-based vaccines, respectively, can potentially result failure. To better understand impacts due changes, we investigated fluid dynamics ballistics involved delivery. Our research was divided into two phases: viscosimetric physics first phase determine behavior under different temperature settings, simulating recommended storage (7ºC), plus an ambient (20ºC). In second our study, assessed efficiency by specialized darts, precision CO2 projector blowgun. Efficiency assessment done comparing original volume with actual injected after firing dart fresh pork hide mounted on ballistic gel. Before testing, configured required minimum impact velocity for parameters intramuscular injection (determined as ˃ 40 m/sec). All executed dart-deployments performed satisfactorily, despite initial concerns potential incomplete delivery, however, noteworthy loss observed (˃10%) associated residues syringe/dart dead space within transfer needle. This could inaccurate dosing depending used. Furthermore, use blowgun (>3m) discouraged, especially when adequate penetration difficult reach, addition during targeting.