A real Moroccan pharmaceutical breakthrough: The first quadrivalent vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease developed by a Moroccan company was registered last August as part of the FAO's "AgResults FMD Challenge" Project.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the 1st Global Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on innovation in animal health, held from September 23 to 25. This is indicated in a press release from Biopharma, the laboratory behind this first quadrivalent vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease of Moroccan production.
Biopharma has indeed qualified as the first competitor in the FAO's "AgResults FMD Challenge" Project. This after successfully registering in one of the six target countries (Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya) and meeting the project's target product profile (TPP), notes the same source. The "AgResults FMD Vaccine Challenge" project had also officially launched its cost-sharing phase for vaccine distribution.
"Launched in February 2020, this project is a competition with a prize of $ 17.34 million over eight years, managed by GALVmed (Global Alliance for Veterinary Medicines) which supports the development and adoption of high-quality quadrivalent foot-and-mouth disease vaccines, adapted to the needs of East Africa", details Biopharma.
The laboratory tells us that this project is divided into two phases: The development phase during which participating manufacturers work to create a foot-and-mouth disease vaccine relevant to the region. The latter must meet certain predefined criteria. “It was during this phase that Biopharma, which is a public company under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture, followed the necessary processes to develop and register a quadrivalent vaccine specific to the region in Rwanda, in line with the target product profile (TPP) of the project,” the laboratory explains.
The second phase of sharing the costs of distributing the vaccine officially began on October 1. According to the same source, the project uses a mechanism that promotes the adoption and distribution of high-quality vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease. A mechanism that aims to reduce the cost per dose for buyers in order to enable public and private sector actors to better fight this disease through access to the most effective vaccines.
By Hayat Kamal Idrissi
Source : https://lobservateur.info
L’Observateur du Maroc et d’Afrique (MAROC)
