Positive signals after testing 3,000 doses of African swine fever vaccine

Since the beginning of the year, African swine fever has been complicated, causing great losses to farmers. In Quang Ninh province, 9 out of 13 localities have had outbreaks with more than 3,690 pigs forced to be destroyed. In the face of this situation, along with solutions implemented to control and prevent the spread, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has advised the Provincial People's Committee to deploy a trial vaccination of 3,000 doses of African swine fever vaccine in a number of localities in the province to evaluate the protective effectiveness of the vaccine, thereby deploying vaccination on a large scale.

Veterinary staff of Hai Xuan commune (Mong Cai city) prepare African swine fever vaccine to inject 110 pigs of Mr. Hoang Van Binh's household.

As the first locality selected by the province to conduct a trial vaccination of African swine fever vaccine, Mong Cai City has chosen to conduct the first phase of vaccination in Hai Xuan and Hai Tien communes. These are also the two communes with the largest pig herds and are also one of the four localities where African swine fever has occurred since the beginning of the year. In these two communes, Mong Cai City has simultaneously conducted a trial vaccination in villages and areas where the disease has not yet occurred.

Mr. Hoang Van Binh, village 6, Hai Xuan commune (Mong Cai city), said: My family has been raising pigs for 10 years now and I also pay a lot of attention to disease prevention. Recently, the commune announced a trial injection of African swine fever vaccine, I registered and had the veterinarian come down to inject my family's herd of 110 pigs. African swine fever is very complicated, if this vaccine is effective, in the coming years, I will proactively buy it to vaccinate my family's pigs.

Since the beginning of the year, Mong Cai City has had 4 communes, Vinh Thuc, Vinh Trung, Hai Tien and Hai Xuan, affected by African swine fever with nearly 1,000 pigs infected and forced to be destroyed according to regulations, equivalent to 65 tons of pork. Therefore, the city was chosen by the province to carry out a trial vaccination, thereby assessing the level of protection of the vaccine, limiting the risk of disease outbreak and spread. To date, after 2 vaccination campaigns, in which the first phase was from July 29 to 31 and the second phase was on August 5, Mong Cai City has completed vaccination for 2,393 pigs of 181 households in Hai Xuan, Hai Tien, Hai Dong communes and Hai Yen ward.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of Mong Cai City, said: Along with the support of professional staff of the Provincial Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, the city also assigned veterinary staff of communes and wards to closely monitor and follow up on the entire pig herd after the vaccination was completed in 4 communes and wards in the area and promptly deployed professional measures. Up to now, the pig herd after 25 days of the first vaccination in 2 communes of Hai Xuan, Hai Tien and 19 days of the second vaccination in Hai Dong commune and Hai Yen ward is still stable. Only 4 pigs in Hai Xuan commune stopped eating and died after 1 week of vaccination. Through monitoring after this trial vaccination, we see that selecting healthy pigs for vaccination is very important. However, in addition to vaccination, livestock farmers must have solid barns, implement biosafety farming processes and regular monitoring to promptly detect problems during the vaccination process and monitor after vaccination to have timely support measures.

In Mong Cai City, the African swine fever vaccine trial was organized in 2 phases in 4 communes and wards.

The implementation of the African swine fever vaccine trial aims to evaluate the effectiveness of antibodies on livestock to protect production results. Previously, in 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced the commercial circulation of two types of African swine fever vaccines, including AVAC ASF LIVE and NAVET - ASFVAC, in the context that after more than 100 years, there has not been a licensed commercial vaccine in the world to prevent African swine fever. These are all products researched and produced by domestic enterprises.

Veterinary staff of Ha Long City conducted a trial injection of African swine fever vaccine at Mr. Pham Huy Minh's household, Le Loi commune.

The African swine fever vaccine used by Quang Ninh province for experimental vaccination of pigs is AVAC ASF LIVE, researched and produced by AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Company. The Company supports all 3,000 doses of experimental vaccine for households to vaccinate healthy pigs from 4 weeks to 3 months old without charging. Pregnant sows, nursing pigs, breeding boars and pigs with weak health will not be vaccinated. After completing the vaccination of 3,000 doses of African swine fever vaccine in 6 communes and wards in 2 localities, Mong Cai City and Ha Long City, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development assigned technical staff to supervise and support localities and households to monitor the pig herds to promptly handle any arising problems.

Ms. Chu Thi Thu Thuy, Head of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of Quang Ninh, said: In fact, through the monitoring results of the Department, the rate of African swine fever virus circulation in the environment accounts for about 3%, when encountering favorable weather conditions, it will break out into an epidemic in the pig herd. For herds infected with African swine fever, the mortality rate can be up to 100%. From a professional perspective, we assess that this is a dangerous and complicated epidemic. Therefore, after completing the African swine fever vaccination in some localities in the province, after 28 days we will take samples to evaluate the protective effectiveness of the vaccine antibodies. This result is a very important basis for evaluating the effectiveness. On that basis, the Department will advise the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to advise the Provincial People's Committee to direct the next steps to deploy large-scale vaccination in the coming time, in order to increase protection for livestock, contributing to stable production development.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/tin-hieu-kha-quan-sau-thu-nghiem-tiem-3-000-lieu-vacxin-ta-lon-chau-phi-3315285.html