The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced the first major foot-and-mouth disease vaccine purchase to store in the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, commonly known as the U.S. vaccine bank.
APHIS will invest $27.1 million with two animal health companies, Biogenesis Bago and Boehringer Ingelheim, to help in the event of an outbreak to protect animals and help stop the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.
“While we are confident we can keep foot-and-mouth disease out of the country, as we have since 1929, having access to vaccine is an important insurance policy,” USDA Marketing and Regulatory Programs Undersecretary Greg Ibach said. “Vaccines could be an important tool in the event of an incursion of the disease in the U.S, but their use will depend on the circumstances of the incursion and require careful coordination with the affected animal industries.”
A vaccination program would help control the spread of infection caused by the virus by reducing the amount of virus shed by animals and controlling the clinical signs of the disease.
Although foot-and-mouth disease is not a threat to public health or the food supply, an outbreak would lead to at least a temporary shutdown of export markets.
But a vaccination program would allow animals to move through domestic production channels.
The National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank is one component of a three-part program established by the 2018 Farm Bill to support animal disease prevention and management.
The 2018 Farm Bill provided $150 million in funding over the next five years for the vaccine bank, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network and the National Animal Disease Preparedness Program.
The new U.S.-only vaccine bank—a concept APHIS officials have long discussed with stakeholders and industry—makes a much larger number of vaccine doses available than currently accessible through the North American Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank.
APHIS will continue to participate in the North American Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank, and this new program adds to the nation’s level of protection against this devastating disease.
In the event of an outbreak, animal health officials would decide when, where and how to use the available vaccine, based on the circumstances of the outbreak.
Cattle and swine groups advocated for the vaccine bank, stressing the risks to the food supply should foot-and-mouth disease, or any other infectious diseases, hit U.S. livestock.
Foot-and-mouth disease affects all cloven-hoofed animals like cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, deer, elk and other wildlife.
It is a severe and highly contagious viral disease.
The virus survives in living tissue and in the breath, saliva, urine and other excretions of infected animals.
It can also survive in contaminated materials and the environment for several months under the right conditions.
There are seven known types and more than 60 subtypes of the virus.
More information about the vaccine bank is available at www.aphis.usda.gov.