Vietnam successfully produces African swine fever vaccine

On the morning of June 1, at a press conference in Hanoi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that on June 3, the ministry would announce this achievement and concurrently issue a license to circulate the vaccine. The commercial name of the vaccine is NAVET-ASFVAC, produced by the Central Veterinary Medicine Joint Stock Company (Navetco).

Deputy Minister Tien assessed that Vietnam’s successful production of a commercial vaccine against African swine fever was a “historic event”. First appeared in Africa in 1921, the disease caused 100% mortality in pigs. There have been more than 4,000 research works related to cholera virus and vaccine development by scientists, but there is no commercial vaccine to prevent the disease.

Vietnam started researching and producing African swine fever vaccine from February 2020 with the coordination of American experts. Five months later, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development directed the import of gene-cutting attenuated swine cholera virus strains from the US for research and production of vaccines to prevent and control the disease.

According to Navetco, after 5 laboratory tests, the vaccine is capable of protecting 100% of vaccinated pigs and in production conditions has protected over 80% of pigs with immunity for 6 months after vaccination. .

The Ministry of Agriculture has established grassroots and ministerial-level scientific councils and organized dozens of meetings with the participation of many leading scientists in Vietnam to evaluate vaccines. The results of research and vaccine production are published in prestigious scientific journals of the world. In May 2022, in a letter to the Vietnam Department of Animal Health, the Agricultural Research Institute of the US Department of Agriculture confirmed that the NAVET-ASFVAC vaccine was “safe and effective”.

Because this is a new vaccine, in order to have more scientific data on safety and effectiveness of disease prevention, NAVET-ASFVAC vaccine will initially be sold in a limited area with about 600,000 doses to vaccinate pigs 8-10 weeks old. After there is a report on the evaluation of the results of using the vaccine in phase 1, the Department of Animal Health will report to the Ministry of Agriculture to direct its use nationwide.

Mr. Tran Xuan Hanh, deputy general director of Navetco, said that the expected price of ASF vaccine is 34,000-36,000 VND/dose, equivalent to the vaccine against blue ear disease. Currently, Navetco has received an offer to transfer to Dominica because this country is having an epidemic.

African swine fever broke out in Vietnam in 2019, after 7 months, it spread to 63 provinces and cities. According to statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2021 alone, epidemics occurred in 3,154 communes of 60 provinces and cities, forcing the destruction of 288,660 pigs, 3.2 times higher than 2020. The epidemic caused a loss of more than 30,000 billion VND, greatly affected the livelihoods of 3.5 million livestock households, hundreds of businesses, and directly affected the CPI and exports.

Pham Chieu