Vietnam Officially Approves Domestic Commercial Use of Two ASF Vaccines

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Vietnam has officially approved the domestic commercial use of two locally manufactured vaccines against African Swine Fever.

The Swine Health Information Center's August eNewsletter reports on the approval by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Vietnam of two new locally manufactured African Swine Fever vaccines.SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg acknowledges, while distribution of the vaccines will be a challenge, this is a significant development.

Quote-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

This is a very important big step and the first world opportunity for commercializing of an African Swine Fever vaccine.But it's also, in relation to everything that needs to continue to happen, a relatively small step.It's a very important one but still some challenges remain.

One of the exciting things is that Vietnam is cooperating with the Dominican Republic in testing these vaccines in the DR as well.The Dominican Republic government and the Vietnamese government have reached an agreement where they can do some small-scale testing of the vaccine in the Dominican Republic.
Should that be productive, should that be successful, this may lead to distribution in the DR and may help to decrease risk of that virus getting off the island and infecting neighboring islands or North America.

Thise are the types of things that were still looking at and a lot of things that we still have learn, we still have to understand but the first commercialization of an African Swine Fever vaccine in the world is an extremely important development.

Dr. Sundberg says, because the vaccines are produced in swine blood cells, availability will be limited and, because it is not possible to differentiate vaccinated pigs from naturally infected pigs, use of the vaccines in countries that are free of ASF could cause trade issues.