A Path to Prosperity New Directions for African Livestock

4.4.2 Accreditation of Quality Products
The African market is still overcrowded by huge
quantities of fake and low quality “generic,”
veterinary drugs 59 . As farmers demand higher
levels of veterinary service, they will stop using lowquality
generics. This is a time when unscrupulous
manufacturers are likely to increase production of
counterfeits of quality products. There is growing
interest in Africa and Asia in the use of mobile
phone and bar code technology to avoid fake
products. Ghana, for example, is testing a system
where a drug purchaser simply sends a code
embossed on the body of the product in a regular
SMS to a dedicated access number, the buyer then
receives a real time response authenticating the
product. One way of scaling up and harmonising
novel systems might be through the existing Pan
African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (PANVAC).
PANVAC was established in 1986 with FAO support
and played a key role in quality assuring rinderpest
vaccine throughout the Pan-African rinderpest
campaign (PARC). A review of PARC declared: “The
recent success of PARC clearly demonstrated that
no amount of vehicles, syringes, trained personnel,
communication materials, would have eliminated
rinderpest if the vaccine batches used were of poor
quality” 61 . The secondary and independent level of
quality control assessment assured by PANVAC
played a major role in rinderpest eradication and a
sustained improvement in the quality of vaccines
against rinderpest and contagious bovine
pleuro-pneumonia produced in Africa 62 .
Over the years, PANVAC has received funding
support from numerous donors including UNDP,
Japan, the EC and FAO. In 2004 the Centre was
officially launched as an African Union regional
centre, with its headquarters at Debre Zeit (Ethiopia)
and funding contributed by the Department
of Rural Economy and Agriculture.
Notable achievements of PANVAC include 63 :
> Improved vaccine production by PANVACsupported
laboratories through a vaccine
quality assurance programme that led to priority
vaccine (CBPP, RP, PPR vaccines) pass rates
close to 80%, as opposed to less than 30% at
the inception of PANVAC;
> The establishment and maintenance of an
African repository of well characterized
reference biological materials from which supply
to most of veterinary vaccines production
laboratories of the region has been accomplished;
> The training of over 300 veterinarians and
technicians from vaccine production laboratories
in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Europe;
> The development and transfer of new vaccine
technologies e.g. the Xerovac process for the
manufacture of heat-tolerant live vaccines;
> The building of an extensive range of scientific
collaborative linkages and partnerships with
leading international institutions and
organizations.
PANVAC was recently given a vote of confidence by
African Ministers, with calls for further staff and
resources that will give PANVAC a key capacitybuilding
role and assuring that all stocks of
rinderpest vaccine are removed from African labs.
PANVAC was founded in the belief that “the health
of livestock in Africa can be substantially improved
by the use of good quality vaccines and diagnostic
reagents.” This view was re-endorsed by 43 African
countries attending a 2010 regional training for OIE
focal points for veterinary products in Africa 64 .
The same belief can be extended to veterinary
medicines. Although PANVAC focuses on vaccine
production and quality, its mandate could be
extended to include veterinary medicines, should
the African Union Commission decide that this
would be practical and useful. PANVAC’s mission
statement already includes the provision of
international independent quality control,
standardization and harmonization, transfer of
technologies, provision of training and technical
support services to quality control laboratories
and the production and distribution of essential
biological reagents.
The involvement of PANVAC in veterinary medicine
quality control could lead to continental oversight of
vaccine and medicine quality that would support the
harmonization efforts of the RECs, AU/IBAR and
VICH. This oversight could extend to assessments
for new veterinary dossiers and products, whereby
PANVAC hosts a pool of recognised experts that
countries can utilise on a “per application,” basis.
An opportunity for an enhanced role for PANVAC
opened up in 2011 through the EC-funded
programme “reinforcing veterinary governance in
Africa.” This programme has the specific objective
of creating an institutional environment conducive
to the provision of affordable, accessible and
sustainable quality veterinary services in Africa.
Whilst programme results include harmonisation of
regulatory frameworks at regional level with RECs,
to what extent this will include veterinary drug
quality regulations has yet to be determined.
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