First indigenous lumpy vaccine gets approval, a big achievement in the veterinary field

The first indigenous vaccine developed to prevent the deadly Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) for cattle will soon be available in the market. Bharat Biotech Group company Biovet has received approval from the Central Drug Standards Control Organization (CDSCO) for the LSD vaccine. This is the first marker vaccine for Lumpy disease in the world, which will soon be launched in the market under the name BIOLUMPIVAXIN. This information was given in a statement issued by the company on Monday.

Biovet had obtained the technology license for the commercial production of Lumpy-Provac vaccine developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in 2022. Since then, Biovet was awaiting CDSCO approval for the vaccine. Lumpy-Provac was developed in collaboration with ICAR's National Research Center on Equines (ICAR-NRCE), Hisar and Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar.

Dr. BN Tripathi, the then Deputy Director General (Animal Science) of ICAR, who led the team of scientists developing the vaccine and is currently the Vice Chancellor of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, told Rural Voice that this vaccine provides complete protection to the cattle from lumpy skin disease. This is the first vaccine of its kind in the world which does not cause any local infection on animals.

The specialty of the vaccine is that it is a Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animal (DIVA) vaccine which can prove to be a game changer in the prevention of lumpy skin disease. Dr. Tripathi says that even if this vaccine is used on pregnant animals, it does not have any side effects and neither does it affect milk production. Animals also do not face problems like fever due to this vaccine. Along with saving lakhs of cattle in the country from lumpy disease, this is being considered an important step towards self-reliance in the veterinary sector.

It is worth noting that about two lakh cattle died in the country due to lumpy disease. The milk production capacity of millions of animals and the rural economy were affected. Most of these deaths occurred in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Maharashtra.

Delayed approval

ICAR had developed the Lumpy disease vaccine Lumpy-Provac in 2022 itself. Research was going on on it since 2019. The then Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Animal Husbandry and Dairy Minister Parshottam Rupala had announced the development of the Lumpy-Provac vaccine on August 10, 2022. But it took a long time to get approval for its commercial production.

Experts believe that if the commercial production of the vaccine had been approved in 2022 itself, a large number of cows could have been saved from death. At that time, the government had used goat pox vaccine in cows, which was not completely effective, because that vaccine was not made for cows (cattle).

Biovet, Indian Immunological Limited, Huester Bioscience and the Government of Maharashtra had taken license from Agri Innovate, a company working under the Ministry of Agriculture, for the commercialization of the Lumpy-Provac vaccine developed by ICAR. They were given the technology and necessary material to make the vaccine. At that time it was expected that all the formalities would be completed in four to five months to launch the vaccine in the market, but due to the process of large-scale testing, now after about two and a half years, the first LSD vaccine will be available in the market.

How was the vaccine made

The story of developing Lumpy vaccine in India is quite interesting. Work on the vaccine started after Lumpy disease surfaced in Odisha in the year 2019. Dr. Tripathi says that work on the vaccine started in late 2019 and it was tested on animals in July 2022, which proved to be completely successful. Extensive and world-class tests were conducted at NRCE, Hisar and IVRI, Izzatnagar regarding the quality, safety and efficacy of the vaccine. This vaccine remains safe for a long time and does not need to be kept in freezing conditions. It has to be kept at refrigerator temperature (4-8 degrees Celsius), which will make its use easier. This has been possible due to the presence of live virus in the vaccine.

Even during the Corona period, ICAR scientists continued research on Lumpy vaccine. For this, the virus was brought from Ranchi. The vaccine was developed under the leadership of NRCE virologist and principal scientist Dr. Naveen Kumar. Dr. Naveen Kumar is currently the director of NIV, Pune. After taking a sample of the Lumpy skin disease virus, it was isolated at NRCE Hisar and its gene sequencing was done. After this, it was cultured and cultured for 50 generations. After this, the vaccine was tested on mice and rabbits in the laboratory. This process took place at the Mukteshwar Center of IVRI.

The vaccine candidate virus was tested on regulated animals at IVRI in April 2022, in which ten calves were given the vaccine and five were kept with them without vaccine. After applying the vaccine, it takes about a month to develop complete immunity. After a month, the virus was injected into all these animals. As a result, all ten vaccinated animals were completely protected from the disease. While symptoms of lumpy skin disease were found in the other five.

After this, the field trial of the vaccine was done in July 2022. It was trialed in Banswara, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Alwar in Rajasthan, Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Hansi and Hisar in Haryana. All the vaccinated animals remained completely safe while other animals at these places were affected by lumpy skin rot. Thus the way was paved for the first LSD vaccine of its kind in the world.