Vietnam to ship African swine fever vaccines to Philippines, Indonesia
SHIC says still need to establish a sustainable plan for documenting and assessing the vaccine's effectiveness in real-world scenarios.
This week Vietnam's Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced it will soon be shipping African swine fever vaccines to the Philippines and Indonesia. According to local news outlet Vietnam Plus, two million doses will be exported to the two countries between August and October this year.
Last week MARD approved the nationwide use of the two ASF vaccines — NAVET-ASFVAC, co-developed by Navetco Central Veterinary Medicine and scientists from the United States, and AVAC ASF LIVE, developed by AVAC Vietnam JSC. The government agency sent guidance to provincial and city People's Committees and notified localities that the vaccines can be used based on the local disease situation.
According to the local news outlet, the exports to these two countries, with positive feedback, could lead to further vaccine export opportunities for Vietnam.
Both vaccine firms worked with specialized agencies and other collaborators to test the vaccines. Phan Quang Minh, deputy director of Vietnam's Department of Animal Health, said so far the pilot vaccination of 600,000 doses of both ASF vaccines has given positive results on a small scale.
The Swine Health Information Center and the Global Swine Disease Monitoring Report team at the University of Minnesota acknowledge there are still several significant challenges related to the successful implementation of the vaccine:
Lack of a DIVA (differentiating infected from vaccinated animals) feature in both vaccines, making it difficult to distinguish vaccinated animals from infected ones.
Absence of an effective molecular surveillance system to monitor the circulation of wild and vaccine variants in the pig population, which is crucial for understanding the virus's dynamics and the vaccine's efficacy.
The need to establish a sustainable plan for documenting and assessing the vaccine's effectiveness in real-world scenarios. This requires robust reporting systems to gather accurate data on the vaccine's status and outbreak reports, helping to evaluate its impact on the target population thoroughly.
Although advances have made in the approval and distribution of an ASF vaccine, there is still no commercially available vaccine approved for emergency use in the United States.
"Offering a tested, safe and effective vaccine to even a limited market is good news," says SHIC Executive Director Paul Sundberg. "It's certainly important progress but there is still a long way to go."
About the Author
You May Also Like