Lumpy skin disease is a viral infection that primarily affects cattle. It is spread by blood-feeding insects such as flies and mosquitoes, as well as ticks. It causes fever, nodules on the skin, and death, particularly in animals that have never been exposed to the virus.
Rupala lauded ICAR's efforts in developing the indigenous Lumpi-ProVac vaccine against lumpy skin disease (LSD) in animals. He stated that this MoU will also ensure large-scale production of Goat Pox vaccine for India's livestock sector's future needs.
Currently, Goat Pox vaccine is used to control Lumpy Skin Disease in animals, and it has been shown to be effective against Lumpy. He also emphasised the importance of the technology and requested that the IVBP, Pune, begin mass-producing the vaccine as soon as possible so that the vaccine can be used by the department to assist farmers in overcoming the disease.
Lumpi-ProVac is a homologous live-attenuated LSD vaccine developed by the National Centre for Veterinary Type Culture, ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines (ICAR-NRCE), Hisar (Haryana), in collaboration with the ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar (UP).
The commercial arm of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Agrinnovate India, under the ministry of agriculture and farmers' welfare, granted "non-exclusive rights" to the Institute of Veterinary Biological Products (IVBP), Pune, for the commercial production of Lumpi-ProVac.
The Lumpy Skin Disease was first reported in India in 2019, with the state of Odisha reporting the first case.
