The Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) has today announced a new 5-year programme to address the near-universally poor rates of ruminant (cattle, sheep and goats) vaccine coverage across Africa.
Veterinary Innovations Transforming Animal Health and Livelihoods 2 (VITAL 2) is a follow-on project to the flagship VITAL initiative that supported the development and commercialisation of quality, safe and effective vaccines for livestock. VITAL 2 will continue to build the portfolio of available ruminant vaccines and focus on raising the low vaccination rates of small and large ruminants across sub-Saharan Africa, using private sector-driven initiatives to transform the market for high-quality vaccines and to complement governments’ vaccination plans . This will in turn unlock the enormous and much-needed development potential of livestock for small-scale producers.
Across the African continent, livestock are one of the leading sources of food security and resilient livelihoods. Livestock production contributes between 30-80% of the continent’s total agricultural GDP and provides jobs and nutrition for millions.
Yet, Africa’s livestock sector faces several growing challenges, not least the spread of harmful diseases, which disrupt the incomes and livelihoods of rural communities. In total, some 20% of the world’s livestock is estimated to be lost to disease, with the burden exceptionally higher in regions like sub-Saharan Africa.
In most cases, vaccines often represent the single most effective livestock disease prevention tool to mitigate the effects of these challenges, helping to safeguard the income, livelihoods and food supply that livestock provide.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the problem of low ruminant vaccination persists affecting mostly small-scale livestock producers (SSPs).
VITAL 2 seeks to catalyse a transformation across the entire African ruminant vaccine market, focusing on exemplar areas and production systems within Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria to attain rapid, significant results. It is expected that this will drive ongoing growth and expansion of private sector delivered ruminant vaccination in other countries beyond 2030 through relevant stakeholder groups.
VITAL 2 will focus on three strands of complementary work:
- Enabling the Vaccine Environment which will develop the necessary vaccine market linkages across the numerous stakeholder groups to enable private sector ruminant vaccine enterprises to become established as a key contributor to the government’s livestock development plans and then rapidly expand.
- Delivering Private Sector Driven Vaccine Supply Chains to create access to ruminant vaccines through upstream (working with vaccine manufacturer to provide efficient supply of vaccines to the retailers) and downstream (working with other stakeholders to strengthen veterinary service provision and awareness creation among SSPs on the inherent value of vaccinating ruminants).
- Progressing Product Development for Ruminant Vaccines to continue the development of novel multivalent ruminant vaccines for widespread use by SSPs.
Speaking during the announcement, Dr Carolin Schumacher, GALVmed’s CEO, said:
“In recent years, together with our partners JOVAC, Hester Biosciences, M.C.I. Santé Animale and MSD Animal Health, we have succeeded in developing and bringing to market a portfolio of affordable ruminant vaccines and medicines for the neglected small-scale livestock producer customer segment of the global south. In VITAL 2, we would like expand the ruminant vaccines market to adequately address the needs of the continent’s tens of millions of small-scale producers and to enable them to make vital contributions to food security and economic growth on the continent, including their own.”
Dr Schumacher added: “We will work closely with authorities, veterinary professionals, value chain partners and livestock farmers to identify the best way forward to improve livestock health and productivity through prevention of diseases.”
It is expected that through VITAL 2, millions of SSP customers will be served with a portfolio of ruminant vaccines and other essential animal health products.
