Varsity develops cell-culture-based vaccine for swine fever

Varsity develops cell-culture-based vaccine for swine fever

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Feb 20, 2015 : Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University (KVAFSU) C. Renukaprasad on Thursday said the university had developed cell-culture-based (laboratory-based) vaccine to control swine fever in pigs for the first time in the country.

Swine fever affects only pigs, no other animals or human beings. At present, there was no cell-culture-based vaccine available to control the fever. The vaccine available was animal-based, produced from the liver of rabbits that had to be killed for the purpose, Dr. Renukaprasad said in an informal chat with presspersons.

The Vice-Chancellor said the university was awaiting licence to manufacture the vaccine on a commercial scale. It was setting up a laboratory which would be ready in the next three months.

He said: “For the first time in India, cell-culture-based vaccine has been produced. That too by a State government-funded university.”

The Vice-Chancellor was here to inaugurate the ‘Fishco Festival’, an inter-collegiate competition, organised by the College of Fisheries, a unit of the university.

Mr. Renukaprasad said that mycoplasma affected sheep in the summer. It started in winter and aggravated in the summer. Now the university has developed an antigen (a substance which induced an immune response) to detect and confirm the disease. As a next step, a vaccine would be developed to control it.

 

Courtesy: The Hindu