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Duck plague vaccine: Made-in-India vax to save ducks, save big on import bill
Duck plague vaccine will be officially launched on March 26 at the annual general meeting of the ICAR in New Delhi
India is all set to use an indigenously developed vaccine against duck plague, the viral disease giving nightmares to the country’s duck farmers.
Thanks to Dr Satyabrata Dandapat, principal scientist and in-charge, immunology section, Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, who has not only developed a vaccine but has also ended the dependence on imported duck plague vaccine. IVRI functions under the aegis Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
On March 26, the institute will officially launch the Make-in-India drug during the annual general meeting of the ICAR at National Agricultural Science Complex, New Delhi.
“Duck plague is a deadly disease. Luckily, this viral plague does not affect chicken but for the duck, which is the second largest bird-rearing sector after chicken farming, it’s a nightmare. Being a highly contagious viral infection, the disease leads to untimely death of the bird within 4 to 5 days of infection. And my vaccine will deal with the disease and that too in a much more efficient and effective manner,” said Dr Dandapat.
However, developing the vaccine was tough. Dr Dandapat says that this disease was not new for India. Duck plague was first reported in India in 1963 in West Bengal when it badly affected the duck farming. After that he said the disease became a common affair until the year 1979 when the Indian Government eventually imported the vaccine from the Netherlands, which had already developed a vaccine by then.
“Though this imported vaccine was effective, there were many issues that hindered its widespread and effective usage. The biggest issue was that the vaccine needed to be produced using chicken eggs. That is a cumbersome process and was not suitable for its industrial scale production, and hence, it failed to meet the country’s demand.
“Another challenge was that the vaccine was prepared using a foreign bird strain, and hence, its effectiveness on the Indian birds was again a question mark. In order to address these challenges, we decided to develop our own vaccine and began work on it in 2016,” said Dr Dandapat.
In the same year, they began working on the Indian strain of duck plague virus that was isolated from an infected bird from Kerala. The principal scientist said it took almost four years for him to evolve this vaccine. He said that the vaccine was finally developed in 2020. However, due to the pandemic, its launch got delayed.
“The Indian version of the vaccine is totally based on the Indian strain of the bird and can be easily manufactured on mass scale. It also means that the vaccine can easily be supplied to meet the country’s requirement. The vaccine has been tested for safety and potency that conforms to the Indian Pharmacopoeia (2018) guidelines,” he added.
Highlighting the benefits of the vaccine, he said that the vaccine is a cost-effective way to eradicate the disease that wreaks havoc every year. He said the vaccine will be a boon in keeping the country’s ducks safe. According to the latest livestock census of 2019, there are around 33.51 million ducks in the country. Landless farmers in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tripura, Jharkhand, Manipur and some other states and cities in the country directly depend upon duck farming to earn livelihood.
