The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries is set to receive 3 million doses of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines from Egypt today, Thursday, to bolster efforts to curb the ongoing outbreak in certain parts of the country.
This was confirmed during a meeting held by Agriculture Minister Frank Tumwebaze with a delegation of Egyptian officials at his office in Kampala. The delegation, led by Major General Mohsen Abdel Hakam Azouz, the Director of the Veterinary Service Department in Egypt, assured the Minister that the vaccines would arrive in the country in the afternoon.
They revealed that this would be the first batch of the 10 million vaccines Egypt is prepared to dispatch to Uganda.
Staff Brig-Gen. Mohamed, the defense attaché at the Egyptian Embassy in Kampala, stated that the vaccines were part of Egypt’s national reserves, but President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had directed their dispatch to Uganda after learning of the current FMD outbreak.
“His Excellency President el-Sisi ordered a quick supply of 6 million doses of the vaccine from Egypt’s strategic reserves to help our brothers in Uganda overcome the pandemic quickly. As I speak, there are people preparing to load the first batch of 3 million doses to land in Uganda today Thursday,” Mohamed noted.
Minister Tumwebaze posted on Twitter, “Held discussions with a team of veterinary scientists from the Egypt military FMD vaccine manufacturing institute. We agreed on a road map of supplying us vaccines with the first consignment arriving tomorrow. I thank @cdfupdf Gen @mkainerugaba for making this partnership work.”
He said the delegation members, including Prof. Dr. Mohamed Ahmed Saad, the Director of the Veterinary Serum and Vaccine Research Institute in Egypt, and Dr. Abdel-Hamid Bazid of the MEVAC Company, were experts specializing in producing the required vaccines with international quality. They were in Uganda to explore technical cooperation between the two countries in vaccine production.
Minister Tumwebaze commended both governments for the cooperation that will see the first batch of vaccines arrive tomorrow. He said the ultimate goal was to enhance collaboration to produce a quadrivalent vaccine with serotypes O, A, SAT-1, and SAT-2 to curb the four strains of FMD in Uganda.
Through this arrangement, the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) will produce a monovalent FMD vaccine with serotype SAT-1 to be reconstituted with the trivalent vaccine from Egypt containing serotypes O, A, and SAT-2, creating a complete quadrivalent vaccine.
The Egyptian delegation visited the NARO laboratories at the National Livestock Resources Research Institute (NaLIRRI) in Nakyesasa in Wakiso district on Tuesday, where they assessed the readiness and capability of the facilities for joint FMD vaccine production. They were guided by the NARO Director General, Dr. Yona Baguma, who revealed that the organization was already equipped to diagnose FMD and identify the different strains, with ongoing efforts to start local vaccine production.
Prof. Dr. Mohamed Ahmed Saad expressed his admiration for the expertise of NARO scientists and the capabilities of the laboratories. He noted that some equipment needed to be brought in, along with specialized training in using it, before the entire production process could be done locally.
Staff Brig-Gen. Mohamed stated that Egypt was keen on establishing a factory in Uganda to produce vaccines not just for Uganda but for the entire East African region.
Maj. Gen. Kasura-Kyomukama, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries, emphasized the need for local production of the vaccine, noting that the country requires up to 88 million doses each year. He assured the nation that all efforts were being made to contain the current outbreak and eliminate the threat in the long term. The arriving vaccines will add to the 900,000 doses of FMD vaccines that were dispatched to 46 districts two weeks ago.
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