The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is part of a collaborative project that will develop and assess the assays on FMD vaccine strains currently being produced in East Africa, with the intention of transferring the technologies for their future application.

The effectiveness of FMD vaccines is influenced by multiple factors such as route of vaccination, dose, similarity to circulating virus, adjuvant and vaccine integrity; FMD vaccines that are comprised of dissociated virus particles do not elicit adequate levels of protection.

To quantify the integrity of vaccines two different assays have been developed. The techniques complement each other and have the potential to be applied for quality control of FMD vaccines, both during and after the production process, as well as for the characterisation of optimal vaccine storage and delivery conditions.

The project is led by the Pirbright Institute and is funded by the European Commission for the control of Foot-and-Mouth disease (EuFMD) Fund for Applied Research.

Read more in the June 2015 issue of the GFRA Newsletter (page 7)