Home-made vaccine for cattle disease expected to cut imports by THB280m

The department's director-general, Sorawit Thaneeto, said on Thursday that the vaccine was as efficient as the imported one. He expected the first lot of vaccines to be ready in the middle of May this year.

He added that the price of the lumpy skin vaccine was THB9 per dose, which will help reduce farmers' expenses and enable Thailand to have its own vaccine to tackle the disease.

Sorawit said that LSD was first found in the Phanom Phrai district of Roi Et province on March 29 last year.

"After that, the Department of Livestock Development in cooperation with provincial government agencies and farmers contained the spread of the disease," he said.

He revealed that government agencies had so far imported 5.3 million doses of lumpy skin vaccines costing more than THB160 million, while farmer associations had imported another 500,000 doses costing THB22.5 million.

"Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Dr Chalermchai Sreeon told the department to research and develop vaccines to tackle LSD in May last year," he said.

"The research and development resulted in oil and water inactivated vaccines. It was found that the efficiency of oil inactivated vaccines were 20 per cent higher than water ones."

He added that the field trial at Chokchai Farm in Pak Chong district of Nakhon Ratchasima province in December last year proved that the oil inactivated vaccines could stimulate immunity in cattle against lumpy skin similar to the imported vaccines.

Sorawit added that vaccine production capacity would be between 50,000 and 100,000 doses per month. The department is studying the possibility of boosting production capacity to between 500,000 and 1 million doses, which is expected to be achieved in the middle of next year.

"This move will enable the department to reduce import costs by THB280 million annually, while the vaccines can also be exported to other Asean countries," he added.