[NAIROBI] A new vaccine, designed to protect East African livestock against all major strains of foot-and-mouth disease, is giving hope to small-scale livestock producers battling the highly contagious disease.
Foot-and-mouth disease reduces milk production by up to 80% in affected dairy cows, costing African producers around $2.3 billion per year.
The vaccine was developed as part of the project AgResults Vaccine Challengean eight-year competition with a prize pool of US$17.34 million and organized by the charity GALVmed for breeding.
It is hoped that this vaccine will help prevent further outbreaks of the disease, thereby improving dairy productivity and access to FMD-free global markets.
“Vaccination would limit the risk of transmission of the foot-and-mouth disease virus when animals move across borders”
Charles Ndawula Junior, National Animal Resources Research Institute, Uganda
According to Nina Henning, project manager and team leader at GALVmedvaccination is currently carried out largely in response to an emergency, rather than to prevent an epidemic. Which means that only about five percent of livestock in Africa have been vaccinated.
“Moving from reactive vaccination in the event of an epidemic to prophylactic use before an epidemic is a big step forward for preventive vaccination,” she tells SciDev.Net.
The quadrivalent vaccine, manufactured by Biopharma – a Morocco-based vaccine manufacturing company – was designed to protect livestock against the four types of foot-and-mouth disease viruses – O, A, SAT1 and SAT2 – which are circulating in South Africa. ‘East.
This is the first quadrivalent FMD vaccine to be registered in the region. “It was developed for use on all cattle over three months of age and provides immunity for at least six months after two doses,” explains Nina Henning.
Foot and mouth disease is a viral infection that affects hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and pigs.
Nina Henning says the continued evolution of the virus is giving rise to new strains, causing an increase in the number of cases and increasing the risk of spreading to new areas.
“There is a global clustering of foot-and-mouth disease viruses and these have been divided into seven virus pools,” she explains.
“Normally, FMD vaccines contain only one or two serotypes, but the new vaccine was developed and tested against all four serotypes known to circulate in East Africa. This should give us confidence that the vaccine will effectively control this disease in animals in the region,” she adds.
Cost sharing
Funded by the governments of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the project is structured as a cost-share that reduces the cost per dose for buyers .
According to Nina Henning, so far, $15.8 million has been allocated to the cost-sharing mechanism launched on 1is last October.
This will cover 12.5 million doses of any vaccine meeting the competition’s eligibility criteria AgResults over the next four years.
The process aims to catalyze initial uptake of the vaccine, which can then be scaled up to increase accessibility and uptake.
For small livestock farmers who rely on dairy cows for their household milk and income, the vaccine would provide a previously unavailable level of protection and help preserve milk production.
However, it will be essential to ensure that farmers have the confidence to use it.
“We hope that the rigorous testing process that was carried out on the vaccine before its sale will provide this assurance,” says Nina Henning.
Challenges
Charles Ndawula Junior, a molecular biologist at the National Animal Resources Research Institute in Uganda, says the vaccine could have a positive impact on regional trade.
“This vaccine could ultimately enable East Africa to be declared foot and mouth disease free; which would allow beef to be exported to other FMD-free countries,” he says.
Brazil’s successful decade-long FMD vaccine efforts and FMD-free status are a model of what is achievable, he said.
Charles Ndawula Junior says there are still challenges ahead to ensure consistent availability of the vaccine and gain government and private sector support for wide adoption.
He believes that the success of the vaccination campaign depends on the ability of governments to provide regular access to the vaccine for farmers.
Foot and mouth disease is considered a transboundary disease, meaning it can spread without limits.
“Vaccination would limit the risk of transmission of the foot-and-mouth disease virus when animals move across borders,” adds Charles Ndawula Junior.
The original version of this article was produced by the English edition of SciDev.Net for Sub-Saharan Africa.
