Officially announced the circulation of commercial vaccine for African swine fever

Speaking at the announcement ceremony on June 3 in Hanoi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien emphasized that, for the first time, Vietnam successfully produced a commercial vaccine against African swine fever. . “The test results show that the vaccine’s preventive effect is very good“.

In Vietnam, African swine fever (ASF) first infected in February 2019, then spread to the whole country, forcing the destruction of more than 6 million pigs and a loss of over VND 30,000 billion. , which directly affects the CPI in 2020. Up to now, epidemics have occurred in many localities across the country.

The risk of ASF continuing to arise and spread is very high without an effective vaccine, due to the characteristics of the ASF virus that is very dangerous to pigs, has the ability to persist for a long time in the environment, and the transmission route is very complex, household farming still accounts for a large proportion, not yet meeting the requirements of biosecurity for livestock production.

Since the outbreak of ASF in Vietnam, the Secretariat, the National Assembly, the Government and the Prime Minister have directed the drastic and synchronous implementation of solutions to prevent and control the disease, and organized research and production of vaccines against the disease. Since then, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has directed the Department of Animal Health and businesses with potential, resources and experience to organize research, production, and registration of circulation of DTLCP vaccine.

In November 2019, after US scientists announced the successful study of a attenuated DTLCP virus strain that had been removed from the ASF-G-Delta I177L gene, the leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development sent leaders of the Department of Animal Health to The US attended the meeting, met directly with US experts to discuss research and production of DTLCP vaccine.

From February 2020, the research and production of the official vaccine has been carried out in collaboration with US experts. The Ministry has directed the Department of Animal Health to unify and sign a General Agreement (MOU) for technical cooperation with the Agricultural Research Institute (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to serve as a basis for the parties to implement. .

From July 2020, the Ministry of Directive allowed the import of attenuated ASF virus strains used for research and production of vaccines against ASF in Vietnam.

Immediately after receiving the ASFV-G-∆I177L seed strain from the US Department of Agriculture in September 2020, Navetco Company urgently implemented research, undergoing 5 laboratory tests.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has established grassroots and ministerial-level scientific councils and organized dozens of meetings with the participation of many leading Vietnamese scientists, managers and manufacturers of veterinary vaccines to research , very carefully evaluated the report of scientific research results, the application for registration of the circulation of the DTLCP NAVET-ASFVAC vaccine of Navetco Company.

The results of research and production of NAVET-ASFVAC vaccine of Navetco Company, after being carefully evaluated by independent scientists, have been accepted and published in prestigious scientific journals of the world and the Journal of Science. Veterinary Medicine in Vietnam.

On May 17, 2022, the Agricultural Research Institute of the US Department of Agriculture also sent an official letter to the Department of Animal Health of Vietnam confirming that the NAVET-ASFVAC vaccine is safe and effective.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien, Vietnam can confidently produce African swine fever vaccines to meet the needs of domestic disease prevention and control and towards exporting vaccine products. “Up to this point, no country has announced successful production of a commercial vaccine. Therefore, the potential for exporting African swine fever vaccines produced in Vietnam to other countries is very large“.