South Africa's Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and its board have approved a proposal by agriculture minister Willie Aucamp to license the council's foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine technology to qualifying private manufacturers, local or international. Aucamp announced the decision on 22 September, calling it a breakthrough for livestock production and biosecurity, but warned it would not happen overnight.
The ARC told Farmer's Weekly it has started the technical and administrative due diligence to define the process. As a public entity it must follow procurement rules, and the highly infectious virus makes international biosafety standards central. No date has been set for appointing manufacturers or releasing the first doses they make. Licence income is to be ringfenced to expand the ARC's own plant.
The council currently makes about 20,000 doses of trivalent vaccine, covering the SAT1, SAT2 and SAT3 serotypes, per production cycle, roughly once a month. It rebuilt capacity from a 20-litre pilot to an interim 200-litre system, and a 1,000-litre system is expected to lift output to about 240,000 trivalent doses a month in 2027. It did not say how much private makers would add.
The ARC says data support protection for 12 months after one dose, but that vaccination intervals can differ with the circulating virus, the animal's age and the national strategy. South African field isolates will be sent to the Pirbright Institute in the UK in October 2026 for a second round of vaccine-matching tests.
Bennie van Zyl, chief executive of TAU SA, called the decision "a very positive step" and said more production could improve supply and prices, while stressing that the vaccine was developed with taxpayers' money. Dr David Gerber of Dunevax Biotech urged a transparent choice of manufacturers with good manufacturing practice certification. The report is by Hanlie du Plessis.
Photo: Cgoodwin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly South Africa
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