Zimbabwe's capability for the production of frozen vaccines against the two tick-borne diseases, developed in the earlier project, was enhanced by providing assistance for the country's Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL) to develop sustainable, effective methods for quality assurance, delivery and field monitoring of the vaccines. The vaccine production section of CVL was developed to the stage of becoming a business unit, which would enable it to fund its activities from vaccine sales.
Full quality assurance procedures and techniques for Babesia and Anaplasma vaccine production have been transferred and applied at CVL. Expertise gained in this area has flowed on to other tick-borne disease vaccine production activities at CVL, thereby increasing sustainability and capacity.
Project scientists prepared a suite of ELISA tests for detecting antibodies to B. bovis, B. bigemina and Anaplasma. They are now in routine use for epidemiological studies to identify the need for vaccination and inform producers in Australia and Zimbabwe, and the tests are also available for institutions in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.
An assay developed during the project extension enables researchers to differentiate between the Australian vaccine strain and African field isolates of B. bigemina. It is being used in Zimbabwe to investigate and confirm reported cases of vaccine failure or severe vaccine reactions.
The development of specific and sensitive techniques for differentiating species and strains of Anaplasma was also completed. An ELISA test to detect the presence of A. centrale has been successfully used to confirm vaccination in vaccine breakdown investigations in Australia. It has also been incorporated as a critical component of the import testing protocol for live Australian cattle destined for Mexico and is currently being evaluated for use in Israel.
Vaccine for local use has always been sold at CVL since the early 1900s. In the last two decades however, the procedures to adjust prices have become too slow to keep up with rising costs. The Agricultural Revolving Fund is now in operation and charges are what can be termed market rates with greater flexibility for price adjustments. Vaccine is priced for both local and export use.
A productive collaborative R&D network linking Australian and African institutions and ILRI developed earlier has been broadened by the addition of more institutions from Australia, Africa, the Philippines and Israel.
An ACIAR/ILRI/ICIPE sponsored workshop was held in April 1999 in Harare to identify and prioritise future tick and tick-borne disease research activities for southern and eastern Africa. One of the highest priorities was to improve existing live vaccines. Consequently a new ACIAR project application (AS2/1999/063) was developed with objectives to improve user friendliness and protection of the vaccines.