Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp has announced that qualifying private companies will be allowed to manufacture the Agricultural Research Council’s foot and mouth disease (FMD) vaccine in an effort to increase vaccine supply during the current outbreak.

The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and its board unanimously approved the proposal on Monday.

The ARC vaccine is designed to protect against domestic FMD strains and requires a single annual administration. However, the ARC is currently unable to manufacture the vaccine at sufficient scale.

Under the new arrangement, qualifying local and international companies will be able to manufacture the ARC vaccine through conditional licensing agreements covering the ARC’s intellectual property.

Aucamp said the decision would allow production to be increased while the ARC rebuilds its own manufacturing capacity.

Any income earned by the ARC from licensing agreements will be ringfenced and used exclusively to expand its own FMD vaccine production capacity.

Aucamp said implementation would not happen immediately but described the agreement as a major step towards increasing vaccine availability during the outbreak.

The ARC will also send representative samples of FMD viruses currently circulating in South Africa to the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom in October.

The institute will conduct a second round of vaccine matching to assess how effectively available local and imported vaccines protect against the strains currently circulating in South Africa.

The Department of Agriculture said it would continue working with provincial veterinary services, agricultural organisations, the ARC, and other industry stakeholders to strengthen South Africa’s FMD control programme.