New heartwater vaccine could hit market in two years

Researchers are currently well advanced in work on a live attenuated heartwater vaccine that will make it easier for farmers to vaccinate their own livestock instead of needing to make use of a veterinarian. Head of parasitology at the Agricultural Research Council’s Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, Sikhumbuzo Mbizeni, says they are hopeful the research, being done in partnership with Onderstepoort Biological Products, will bear fruit in the next two years.

He says the existing heartwater vaccine is not user-friendly for farmers, particularly emerging farmers: “The heartwater vaccine that we currently have, has to be given to the animal intravenously. It then has to be monitored for a couple of days and then you do a block treatment.”

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