Windhoek
China could soon be a partner in Namibia’s ongoing quest to solve the mystery of how the uniquely Namibian rabies virus spread among the country’s kudu.
This transpired on Friday when Chinese Ambassador to Namibia Xin Shunkang paid a surprise visit to the final review workshop of the Epidemiological Survey of Rabies in Kudu and the development of an oral anti-rabies vaccine for kudu.
The project, worth some N$3 million, is sponsored by the Namibian Agricultural Union (NAU) with Agra ProVision as project contractor and Dr Rainer Hassel as team leader.
Project partners are IDT Biologika Gmbh and the Friedrich Lὅffler Institute in Germany, the University of Pretoria, the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Windhoek and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
A delegation from China’s Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group (AFECC) and Jinyu Mission to Namibia visited Namibia last year to help determine whether the country will be able to establish its own vaccine production facility.
The emphasis of the vaccine facility will be on locally producing vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), as well as lung sickness and brucellosis. The country currently spends N$600 million annually to import vaccines and pharmaceuticals for its livestock sector.
On Friday, Ambassador Shunkang said while the planned vaccine plant will focus on FMD vaccines, China would gladly assist in finding answers as to how and why rabies is only found in and distributed in Namibian kudu.
Shunkang says China could be the ideal competent technical partner in Namibia’s striving to solve the riddle of rabies in Namibian kudu.
A 100-hectare plot at Eenhana in the Ohangwena Region has already been purchased for the construction of the vaccine production facility and research laboratory.
Kudus rake in millions annually as highly sought-after trophy animals and also provide food for farm workers and families on almost all commercial farms in the country.
China’s involvement in Namibia’s animal health sector came after a Namibian delegation visited state-of-the-art vaccine production facilities of the Jinyu Group in HonHot, in the inner Mongolia province of China in August last year.
China is among the world’s largest producers of livestock vaccine – a very complicated and expensive undertaking.
Most of the livestock vaccine producers in the developing world opt to remain in strategic partnerships with well-established manufacturers in the developed world in order to obtain much-needed research and development from the developed world and thus remain relevant and competitive in what they produce.
The need for livestock vaccines cannot be over-emphasised. The recent outbreak of FMD in the north-central parts of Namibia in May 2015, is clear evidence of how an outbreak of a disease like FMD can disrupt people’s livelihoods, whilst erasing their meagre sources of income.
The N$600 million spent annually on importing vaccines and pharmaceuticals into the country is necessitated by the fact that Namibia has a growing and vibrant livestock sector, composed of approximately 2 million cattle, 4 million goats and 2.6 million sheep.
Due to the obvious growth in the livestock sector the aim is to attract investment into the livestock vaccine and pharmaceutical industries to ensure long-term sustainability and security for Namibian livestock sector and to position the country to become a net exporter of vaccines.
At Friday’s conclusion of the first phase of the Rabies in Kudu Project, Dr Hassel said clear evidence exists that rabies is maintained independently in the Namibian kudu population, saying it is a unique phenomenon with ecological and economic impacts.
He said the intra-muscular vaccine trials have been successfully completed, with excellent results, and preliminary oral vaccine trials have been concluded with moderate results.
The bait trials have been completed successfully, rendering excellent results, and the evaluation of the epidemiological survey has mostly been completed. “The serological survey has been completed successfully rendering unexpected results,” he concluded.