India claims ‘indigenously’ made vaccine for Lumpy skin disease

NEW DELHI – September 12 (ONLINE) THE Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is confident about commercialising its indigenously-developed Lumpi-ProVacInd vaccine against the lumpy skin disease (LSD) virus infecting cattle within “four-five months”.

“Agrinnovate India, which is the commercialisation arm for products and technologies developed by our institutes, issued the expression of interest document last week. Three companies have already shown interest,” Bhupendra Nath Tripathi, Deputy Director-General (Animal Sciences) of ICAR, told The Indian Express.

Lumpi-ProVacInd – jointly developed by ICAR’s National Research Centre on Equines (NRCE) at Hisar, Haryana and the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) at Izatnagar, UP — is a live attenuated vaccine, similar to those used against tuberculosis, measles, mumps and rubella.

“It is also homologous, providing 100 per cent protection against LSD in cattle. Currently, we are only administering goat pox and sheep pox virus vaccines. These are heterologous vaccines offering only cross-protection (up to 60-70 per cent) for cattle against LSD, by virtue of all the three viruses belonging to the same capripoxvirus genus,” explained Tripathi.

While in the case of Covid-19, inactivated vaccines such as Covaxin were used, these are less effective, with just 5-6 months efficacy against capripox viruses. Hence, the choice of a live attenuated vaccine for LSD.