First ever Made-in-India Duck Plague Vaccine Unveiled at ICAR’s 93rd Annual General Meeting

On Saturday, the 93rd Annual General Meeting of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in New Delhi, the first indigenous duck plague vaccine developed by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Bareilly and a diagnostic kit developed for chicken protection were officially unveiled.

Dr Satyabrata Dandapat, lead scientist and in-charge, immunology section, IVRI, created the vaccine to treat ducks against viral illness.

The vaccine is being developed from the "Holland strain," according to Dr. Triveni Dutt, Director of IVRI. He stated, "It has been found to be 100 percent effective in preventing illness." Duck plague is a highly contagious viral disease that affects ducks, geese, and swans and is caused by a herpes virus. It causes young waterfowl with an enlarged hemorrhagic liver to die suddenly.

The first case of duck plague was discovered in West Bengal in 1963 when it wreaked havoc on duck farms. The Centre began importing the vaccination from the Netherlands in 1979. According to Dr. Dandapat, Kerala saw a duck plague outbreak in 2015. A team from the IVRI had gone there to collect tissue samples. The procedure of creating the vaccine was then started. The vaccine can be mass-produced due to its straightforward production procedure.

"This will aid small and marginal farmers and duck-keepers," said Sultan Ahmad, a former research associate at IVRI's Bacteriology and Mycology Division. Chicken mortality is a dreaded event for small farmers as well as huge poultry houses.

According to the 2019 livestock census, the country has roughly 33.51 million ducks. Duck farming is a source of income for landless farmers in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tripura, Jharkhand, Manipur, and other states.

While the vaccine was launched on Saturday, Union agricultural minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Union minister of state. L Murugan and ICAR vice-chairman Purushottam Rupala released diagnostic kits for duck plague vaccination and chicken protection on Sunday, according to sources.

Agriculture ministers from Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as ICAR Director General Trilochan Mohapatra, were in attendance.