11 Oct 2018

Since commissioning of a P200 million Foot and Mouth (FMD) laboratory in 2010, Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) is now able to produce more than double its capacity of FMD vaccine. 

Until 2010, BVI production capacity stood and 12 million but in just eight years it has shot up to more than 25 million mono doses annually.

This presents a brighter future for the institute since it now has capacity to expand its market base. 

According to Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security spokesperson Ms Boikhutso Rabasha, BVI exports its vaccine products and services to over 20 countries in Africa and the Middle East annually. 

Among the countries that benefit from the vaccine are South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Malawi and Mozambique. 

Uganda and Cameroon utilise the vaccine for their annual FMD control programs.

Given the above, this represents an 80 per cent of export market of BVI products, which Ms Rabasha says contributes significantly to Botswana’s Gross Domestic Product.

The beef industry plays a pivotal role in the country’s economy and Agricultural Census Stats Brief prepared by Statistics Botswana in 2015 indicates that Botswana boasts over 2 072 683 cattle.

Therefore, with FMD occurrence and control that dates far back into the 1930s, Ms Rabasha says the government ran an experimental project in partnership with a French company, IFFA-Merieux in 1978.

A year later, the success of the project led to the birth of BVI, a public company wholly owned by government and working in technical cooperation with IFFA Meriux. Though BVI has made a breakthrough in the fight against FMD, Ms Rabasha explains that vaccine manufacturing technologies are complex and requires highly skilled personnel and this remains one major challenge that the institute is facing.

“…majority of young scientists who join BVI need further training,” she adds. 

Need for biocontainment facilities remains another hurdle.  Biocontainment is the act of keeping extremely pathogenic organisms such as viruses usually by isolation in secure facilities to prevent their accidental release especially during research. 

Navigating ongoing challenges, Ms Rabasha says BVI has embarked on the construction of a new blending and filling laboratory that will be commissioned in 2021.  Once operational, BVI will now be fully compliant with the European Good Manufacturing Practice, an opportunity to tap into new markets. The target markets are in East, West and Central Africa because many countries do no have proper facilities for production of vaccines.

BVI was initially established to produce FMD vaccines to provide biological safeguards to ensure Botswana’s livestock industry freedom against FMD and to maintain exports of animals and animal products worldwide, which were the key, export earner before discovery of minerals. 

However, over the years BVI has extended its mandate to produce other livestock vaccines Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia Vaccine (CBPP), Peste des Petits Ruminants Vaccine (PPR), Anthrax vaccine and Quarter Evil/Blackquater vaccine.

In 2015, BVI announced successful elimination of Rinderpest (cattle plague) and set a 2030 target for eradication of PPR.  Ends