Vietnam to produce foot-and-mouth disease vaccines next year
Next year, Vietnam expects to produce and provide a sufficient supply of vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease, an infectious and sometime fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle and pigs, as heard at a conference in Hanoi on December 18.
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The conference was held by the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to review its performance in 2017 and outline tasks for 2018.
After several stages of studies based on scientific and technical recommendations by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Regional Animal Health Office No.6 has selected a strain of the foot-and-mouth virus type O, ME-SA/PanAsia linage, to develop the vaccines, said Bach Duc Luu, a representative from the office.
The office has transferred the virus to three domestic vaccine manufacturers for mass production. The first batch of made-in-Vietnam foot-and-mouth disease vaccines is expected to be produced in the second quarter of 2018, he noted.
It is the first joint effort made by the animal health sector and businesses to produce the vaccines for domestic use, reducing the country’s reliance on imports, he added.
Each year, Vietnam has to spend US$20-30 million to import about 20-30 million doses vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease which has caused severe damage for local livestock farming.
