Story thread · 3 reports / 3 sources

Private sector to help scale up ARC FMD vaccine

sanews.gov.za · 5h · first reportShare

Private sector to help scale up ARC FMD vaccine The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and its Board have unanimously approved a proposal by Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp to allow qualifying private companies to use the ARC’s intellectual property (IP) to manufacture its Foot-and -Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccine at a large scale. The decision, taken on Monday, is aimed at addressing current manufacturing constraints and increasing the availability of the ARC vaccine as South Africa continues to respond to the FMD outbreak. The ARC is an entity of the Department of Agriculture. The ARC vaccine is an effective defence against the domestic FMD strains and requires a single annual administration. However, due to manufacturing constraints, the ARC is currently not able to manufacture their FMD vaccine at scale. Under conditional IP licensing agreements with the ARC, local and international companies will be allowed to manufacture the vaccine, helping to expand production while the ARC con