Dabaco Group succeeds in developing ASF vaccine

13-10-2023 | Health | News

The Vietnamese Dabaco Group has announced the successful development of its Dacovac-ASF2 vaccine against African Swine Fever (ASF). The company is the third one to do so. Dabaco Group conducted trials with 200 pigs and found the vaccine efficacy rate to be 80% to 100%, according to Vietnam Agriculture. The vaccine is an attenuated freeze-dried vaccine developed from the ASFv-G-I177L/LVR strain.

Vietnam is the first country to successfully develop and produce 2 vaccines against ASF. The evaluation of the Navet-ASFVAC vaccine, produced by Navetco National Veterinary Joint Stock Company (Navetco), and Avac ASF LIVE produced by Avac is underway. For the Avac vaccine, the registration processes are already underway in other Asian countries.

Registration testing

Dabaco administered the vaccine on 2 commercial pig farms: Cao Minh pig farm owned by Phat Dat company in Vinh Phuc province and Bui Van Toan pig farm in Bac Ninh province. Each farm administered the vaccine to 100 pigs aged 4 and 8 weeks. 50 pigs for each age group. Currently, the Dacovac-ASF2 vaccine is undergoing registration testing in accordance with applicable regulations.

“Initial preliminary assessment results indicate that pig farms utilising the Dacovac-ASF2 vaccine are safe, and pigs are healthy, acquire weight like they should, and develop normally. Pigs produced antibodies against the ASF virus 28 days after vaccination. The process of evaluating the vaccine’s strength is currently underway. Field inspection steps are anticipated to be completed by early November,” said Ta Hoang Long, director of the National Center for Veterinary Drugs and Bio-Products Control No. I.

Challenges to address

Dabaco said it has completed two-thirds of the route to vaccine development. “Dabaco still needs to develop an endemic scenario, and the role of the vaccine in such a scenario”, said Phung Duc Tien, Vietnam deputy minister of agriculture. “The producer needs to test the efficacy of the vaccine on pigs at different ages (4 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks etc.,).”

He added that another challenge is how to manage an outbreak in different pig classes such as boars, suckling piglets or sows, and what the protocols are for vaccine administration on both large-scale and small-scale farms following an outbreak. He also emphasised that since Dabaco is not the first to produce a vaccine against ASF, its approach should be more comprehensive and practical.

“Being the third company to develop a vaccine, Dabaco Group should have seen the experiences of the other developers. Its vaccine should address the issues the other vaccines encountered. We need a vaccine that is efficient, stable, and easy to use.”

Commercial targets

One week after the approval of the domestic use of the world’s first commercial vaccines against ASF, Reuters reported that Vietnam will export 2 million vaccine doses against ASF to the Philippines by October 2023. Besides the cited challenges, Dabaco is expecting to mass produce and commercialise the Dacovac-ASF2 vaccine by the fourth quarter of 2023.