Scientists at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar in Uttar Pradesh, have developed vaccine for classical swine fever (CSF), which is one of the most important diseases that affects pigs. Classical swine fever in pigs causes high mortality with annual loss of approximately Rs.4.299 billion. The vaccine is produced by sacrificing large number of rabbits for each batch.
"This vaccine would be the most economical CSF vaccine costing around less than Rs.2 per dose as against Rs.15-25 of lapinized CSF vaccine and Rs.30 per dose (approx) for an imported Korean vaccine being used in the country. Besides, the new vaccine gives immunity for two years as compared to 3 to 6 months protection under the vaccines currently being used," said director general, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra.
The new vaccine is ready for release and commercial production will be completed in less than a year. The vaccine would be the best choice for use in the CSF control programme (CSF-CP) already launched by department of animal husbandry. The vaccine is safe, potent, and does not revert to virulence and provide protective immunity from day 14 of the vaccination till 24 months studied so far. The vaccine has been tested on around 500 pigs at multiple locations.
In order to do away sacrificing of rabbits and increase the productivity, IVRI had earlier developed a cell culture CSF vaccine by adapting the lapinized vaccine virus in cell culture.
Secretary, department of animal husbandry, Atul Chaturvedi said the country’s total requirement is 22 million doses per year and hardly 1.2 million doses are produced per year by the lapinized vaccine, as only 50 doses are produced from a single rabbit spleen.
Director, IVRI, Dr RK Singh said since the cell culture vaccine is from a foreign strain (Weybridge Strain, UK), IVRI has further developed a new CSF Cell Culture Vaccine by attenuating an indigenous virulent CSF virus in cell culture. The vaccine virus has very high titre and lakhs of doses can be produced very easily in cell culture and country’s requirement can be easily fulfilled using this new vaccine.
Chaturvedi added the new vaccine will be part of the government’s One Health Initiative and will result in huge savings as it will nip the spread of the virus at animal stage so that it does not pass on to the human population.
Mohapatra added there is a huge demand for transfer of this vaccine technology from various State Governments and private manufacturers and the vaccine has huge export potential, especially Nepal.
The new vaccine has been developed by a team of IVRI scientists consisting of Dr Pronab Dhar, Dr Ashok Kumar Tiwari, Dr M Manu, Dr Vikramaditya Upmanyu, Dr Richa Pachauri and Dr Raj Kumar Singh and a patent application has already been submitted for the new invention.
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