ICAR-IVRI Develops New Vaccine to Control Classical Swine Fever

To check drop in pig population in India, Centre has unveiled a new indigenously developed vaccine to control classical swine fever, which is a highly infectious fatal pig disease.

The new vaccine, which is developed by the ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Uttar Pradesh would be much cheaper than the existing one. The cost will be just Rs 2 per dose as compared to the existing rate of Rs 15 to 20 per dose & imported Korean vaccine cost of Rs 30 per dose.

India, at present does not have adequate vaccine to control classical swine fever (CSF) leading to high mortality with annual loss of around Rs 4.29 billion. According to the IVRI, against the annual requirement of 20 million doses, the availability is just 1.20 million doses.

Even though there is no health risk to people, it is highly transmissible among swine.

Atul Chaturvedi, Animal Husbandry & Dairying Department Secretary said that "This CSF vaccine is much economical and will be a game-changer and we need to speed up commercialization".

Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR said the new vaccine has been made using Indian strain & lakhs of doses can be produced easily with the use of cell culture technology and this way country's requirement can be easily fulfilled. He said that the vaccine will be commercialized in the next 6 months and many state governments, private manufacturers and also Nepal government have shown interest in it.

He said price of this new vaccine will be less, as only one dose is required to be given to pigs in a year, unlike 2 doses of the existing ones.

A team of six IVRI scientists, Pronab Dhar, Ashok Kumar Tiwari, M Manu, Vikramaditya Upmanyu, Richa Pachauri and Raj Kumar Singh have developed the new vaccine. The research body has also applied for the patent for the new vaccine.