Hai Duong doctor finds vaccine for African swine fever

The Vietnamese veterinary industry is proud to have invented the African swine fever (ASF) vaccine, because the world has been researching for 100 years but has not yet produced this vaccine. However, few people know that the "father" of the ASF vaccine is a young Vietnamese scientist who has quietly and impressively successfully researched the vaccine.

Dr. Nguyen Van Diep, born in 1983, is from Hai Duong. In 2006, he graduated from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Hanoi University of Agriculture I (now Vietnam Academy of Agriculture), and was then retained at the school as a lecturer at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

In 2013, he received a full Monbokagakusho scholarship to study for a PhD in veterinary pathology at Miyazaki University (Japan).

Travel to Japan for research

In 2015, Nguyen Van Diep won the Best Student Award at the 7th International Conference on Emerging and Re-emerging Swine Diseases held in Kyoto, Japan.

In 2018, after receiving his doctorate in veterinary medicine from Miyazaki University, he continued his postdoctoral research at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kagoshima University, focusing on the study of swine viruses and vaccines against swine diseases.

Dr. Diep said that he personally prepared for the applied research direction right from the first days of his doctoral course to help him improve his knowledge, vision, relationships, and factors that will greatly help his research and teaching work in the future.

“During my time as a PhD student, I always proactively proposed and participated in as many research projects as possible, so that I could have the opportunity to accumulate knowledge, access new techniques and have results to publish,” Dr. Diep shared.

Working at Kagoshima University, Dr. Diep focuses on researching some viruses that cause diseases in pigs such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), and how to culture and create cell lines.

During his scientific research in Kagoshima, Dr. Diep always cooperated with colleagues at the key veterinary laboratory at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture in research and international publication.

ASF remains a persistent disease, causing the greatest losses in pig farming in Southeast Asia. Over the past 100 years, although there have been nearly 4,000 research projects related to the ASF virus, no country in the world has been able to produce a commercial ASF vaccine.

Due to the urgent need for vaccines from livestock farming, in early 2021, through the introduction of an expert, Mr. Vu Tien Lam, Chairman of AVAC Vietnam One Member Co., Ltd., invited Dr. Diep to return to the country to participate in research and development of ASF vaccine production.

When participating in this project, Dr. Diep realized that among the technologies for developing ASF vaccines, developing a live, attenuated vaccine was the most feasible direction.

To create a good vaccine virus strain, Dr. Diep has persistently researched and further domesticated the candidate virus strain transferred from the United States to create a master virus seed that satisfies the strict standards of a good vaccine.

The story of the ASF "incident"

During the research process, Dr. Diep created a DMAC cell line (registered for intellectual property protection) with superior properties, helping to quickly multiply vaccine viruses, increasing biomass for stable production on an industrial scale.

Dr. Diep has conducted more than 100 animal and laboratory experiments to evaluate, optimize the usage process, and create a comprehensive product data set.

Not only participating in the development of the ASF vaccine, Dr. Diep also presided over many other vaccine development and production projects such as the lumpy skin disease vaccine in cattle, the acute diarrhea vaccine in pigs PED, the PRRS green vaccine, the pseudorabies vaccine in pigs, and the vaccines against infectious bronchitis, Gumboro, and Reovirus in poultry.

With his role and contributions, Dr. Diep was appointed General Director of AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Company from October 2021. His technological and invention values ​​have been converted into shares with a valuation of more than 100 billion VND at the company.

In July 2022, AVAC ASF LIVE product of AVAC Company became the first ASF vaccine to be allowed to circulate under supervision on the market by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The monitoring process has shown to be highly effective, with about 94% of vaccinated pigs showing antibodies; no virus was detected in feces and saliva samples of pigs 14 days after vaccination...

By July 2023, AVAC ASF LIVE will also become the first AFS vaccine licensed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for commercial circulation in the market and export.

Up to this point, Vietnam is still the first and only country in the world to produce ASF vaccine.

AVAC has launched 3 million doses of ASF vaccine in the domestic market and exported 465,000 doses (460,000 doses to the Philippines and 5,000 doses to Nigeria). The results of mass use show that the vaccine is safe and provides high protection.

Several other countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia... have also registered to buy AVAC ASF Live vaccine.

Interestingly, in many negotiations to become the exclusive distributor of AVAC ASF Live vaccine, billionaires from Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia or Indonesia... all exclaimed "You are treasure" to Dr. Diep.