Vietnamese ASF vaccine maker AVAC ready to ramp up production

As trials continue to take place in Vietnam and in the Philippines for its vaccine against African Swine Fever (ASF), AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Company (AVAC) has ramped up production capacity at its site in northern Vietnam to 3-5 million doses per month. The company has deployed over 600,000 doses of the vaccine domestically so far, mostly in farms belonging to the CP Group.

“We can produce [many] more doses and we can increase capacity [quickly] at our current production facility, depending on market needs,” AVAC CEO Dr. Nguyen Van Diep told Feedinfo at VIV Asia in March.

Dr. Diep estimates current Vietnamese demand for ASF vaccines at about 10 million doses per year. Demand from neighbouring countries where AVAC’s international distributors are pursuing registration (Thailand, India, etc) is about 10-20 million doses per year, he said.

Dr. Diep mentioned that countries outside Asia are also making enquiries but doubts that the vaccine will be rolled out there anytime soon.

“We have even been contacted [by interested parties] but it will be difficult to supply these markets due to technical testing barriers and differences regarding strategic approaches to controlling ASF,” Dr. Diep commented.

A few companies Feedinfo met in Bangkok are awaiting further developments — in particular, further evidence about the vaccine’s safety. They are nevertheless curious about what might come next, as an efficacious vaccine would be a big step forward in the fight against ASF.

Dr. Diep, meanwhile, is confident in the efficacy and safety of the vaccine AVAC has been working on for the past two years.

He said that the AVAC vaccine strain is derived from a US strain which his company further attenuated by using its own technology. The vaccine is much safer because of that. It is currently effective against serotype 2 ASF, which is the main strain of the virus. The vaccine’s deployment in field settings monitored by the Vietnamese Ministry for Agriculture and Rural Development also ensures safety.

“We have also conducted trials with partners. CP Group, for instance, also do their own studies and have noticed that the vaccine’s efficacy is high. That’s what they told us. We have many government certificates on the safety and efficacy of all vaccines; these were needed for approval in Vietnam,” Dr. Diep commented.

AVAC is not the only Vietnamese company with an ASF vaccine. NAVETCO received the first approval for an ASF vaccine from Vietnam’s Department of Animal Health in early June 2022, while AVAC’s approval came roughly a month later. However, Dr. Diep says AVAC has the competitive advantage.

“NAVETCO has to use live pigs and their cells for vaccine production, which is limiting. Testing is unstable and conditions change from pig to pig. It is also more expensive,” he said.

Unlike other ASF vaccine makers, AVAC produces its own cell lines. “Having (our) cell lines enables reliable quality control,” he added. “This offers us better testing grounds and more flexibility.”

And after injection, Dr. Diep said it is possible to differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals simply by carrying out conventional PCR tests.

Moving forward, Dr. Diep acknowledged that there is still some work to do. For instance, the vaccine, which is mainly used in fattening pigs, still has some limitations for use in sows. According to Dr. Diep, this will take a few years to fine-tune as the full breeding performance of sows and their progeny can only be evaluated over a period of years.

AVAC also plans to optimise the vaccine or develop a new version of it to obtain faster immune response from the pigs.

“This is a big focus for us, and a faster immune response vaccine could be available to register in the next one to two years,” Dr. Diep said.

By Simon Duke, editor-in-chief