BAREILLY
: The first indigenous
duck plague vaccine
developed by Bareilly-based Indian Veterinary Research Institute (
IVRI
) and a diagnostic kit developed for protection of chicken were officially unveiled at the 93rd Annual General Meeting of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (
ICAR
) in New Delhi on Saturday.
The vaccine to treat ducks from the viral disease was developed by Dr Satyabrata Dandapat, principal scientist and in-charge, immunology section at IVRI. Dr Triveni Dutt, director of IVRI, said the vaccine is currently prepared from "Holland strain". "Ït has been found 100% effective in preventing the infection," he said. Duck plague is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by a herpes virus that afflicts ducks, geese and swans. It causes sudden death of young water fowl with enlarged hemorrhagic liver.
Duck plague was first reported in West Bengal in 1963, when it severely affected duck farming. In 1979, the Centre started importing the vaccine from The Netherlands. Dandapat said that in 2015, there was a duck plague outbreak in Kerala. An IVRI team had gone there and took tissue samples. Thereupon, the process of making the vaccine was initiated. Due to its simple process of manufacturing, the vaccine can be produced on a large-scale, Dandapat added.
Moradabad-based Sultan Ahmad, a former research associate in the Bacteriology and Mycology Division, IVRI, told TOI, "This will help small and marginal farmers and duck-keepers. Poultry mortality is a dreaded occurrence for not only large poultry houses but also for small farmers." According to the livestock census of 2019, there are around 33.51 million ducks in the country. Landless farmers in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tripura, Jharkhand, Manipur and some other states depend upon duck farming.
Sources said while the vaccine was launched on Saturday, the diagnostic kits for duck plague vaccine and for protecting chicken were released on Sunday by Union agriculture minister
Narendra Singh
Tomar, Union minister of state, L Murugan and ICAR vice-chairman
Purushottam Rupala
. Agriculture ministers of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh and Trilochan Mohapatra, director general, ICAR, were also present.
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