The WTO-Quality Control Lab of University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Lahore has developed a vaccine for foot and mouth disease. Foot and mouth disease is a viral problem of animals such as buffaloes, cows, sheep, goats, camels, etc.
It is characterised by formation of lesions on the upper side of tongue, dental pad, teeth, feet, high fever, lameness and reduction of milk production, weight gain and working efficiency of draught animals (bullocks). The disease causes heavy economic loss worth Rs 2 billion per year in Pakistan.
The WTO-Quality Control Lab of the UVAS for the first time isolated, adapted and characterised the causative serotype of the virus and established all diagnostic techniques for typing of the virus in the lab. With the financial support of Agriculture Support Programme Loan II (ASPL-II), the Punjab government, and Agricultural Linkage Programme of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (ALP-PARC), the UVAS developed the technique for production of trivalent foot and mouth disease vaccine. The experimental data showed that the animals (cows, buffaloes, sheep and goats) vaccinated twice a year with newly developed vaccine can resist the field infection.
The UVAS has signed MoU with biological production units and transferred the technique for commercial production of the vaccine. This vaccine can control the foot and mouth disease effectively.
The UVAS established the WTO-Quality Control Lab with the financial support of the Punjab government to test the quality of livestock and food of animal origin to meet the international standards of exports and imports of livestock commodities as defined in the charter of WTO. President Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the lab in May 2006.
The lab also tests the food ingredients of animal and plant origin for national health and security reasons to improve the human and animal health, and maintains standards for human foods of fish, poultry and livestock origins.
The lab provides research facilities for university postgraduate students and also suggests guidelines about the sanitary measures to exporters of livestock or foods of animal origin.
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