MoU signed for commercial production of indigenously-developed 'Lumpi-ProVac' vaccine

An MoU for production of goat pox vaccine and 'Lumpi-ProVac' vaccine has been signed in Nagpur in the presence of Union minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry Parshottam Rupala, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Phadnavis.

Rupala praised the effort put forth by ICAR in developing the indigenous vaccine Lumpi-ProVac against lumpy skin disease (LSD) in animals. He said that this MoU will also ensure large-scale production of Goat Pox vaccine for future needs of India's livestock sector. At present Goat Pox vaccine is used for controlling Lumpy Skin Disease in animals and this has been proven effective against Lumpy.

He further highlighted the relevance of the technology and requested the IVBP, Pune, to start manufacturing the vaccine at large-scale without any delay so as to make the vaccine available for use by the department for the help of the farmers by overcoming the disease.

National Centre for Veterinary Type Culture, ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines (ICAR-NRCE), Hisar (Haryana), in collaboration with ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar (UP) developed a homologous live-attenuated LSD vaccine, named Lumpi-ProVac.

The Department of Agricultural Research and Education(DARE)'s commercial arm Agrinnovate India under the ministry of agriculture and farmers' welfare granted "non-exclusive rights" for the commercial production of Lumpi-ProVac to Institute of Veterinary Biological Products (IVBP), Pune.

The Lumpy Skin Disease has been reported in India from 2019 while first case was reported in the state of Odisha.

( With inputs from ANI )