Hyderabad-based Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL) has launched ‘Raksha Blu’ India’s first vaccine for ‘blue tongue’ disease prevalent among flocks of goats and sheep across the country.

“Blue tongue is a viral disease and there are about 24 viral strains prevalent in the world. However, among the Indian livestock only 5 strains are relevant. Onset of this disease results in more than 30 per cent mortality and high level of morbidity. There is no preventive mechanism till date and the routine drugs that are used for treatment do not help the animals recover completely,” explained K V Balasubramaniam, managing director of IIL.

Though the blue tongue disease among cattle, goat and sheep was known 30 years back, till now no company had come forward to develop a vaccine for this disease.  Thanks to IIL for introducing ‘Raksha Blu’ vaccine, which will protect the interests of lakhs of livestock farmers across the country. The vaccine is available at much cheaper rate of just Rs.5 per dose.

There are about 200 million sheep and goat population in India, of them more than 30 per cent are prone to endemic blue tongue disease across the country. Especially, the incidence in sheep is much higher compared to other susceptible species. Several outbreaks of Blue tongue have been reported across the sheep belt in India during last year particularly in southern and western states. Every year sheep, goat, camels and cattle rearing farmers are incurring huge losses due to thousands of them are dying due to this disease.

According to Dr K Anand Kumar, deputy managing director of IIL, the credit for Raksha Blu vaccine goes to Tamilnadu University of Veterinary (TANVUS) and animal sciences and Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) whose collaborative work resulted in the development of this veterinary vaccine for blue tongue disease.

IIL is the only institutions in the country in the veterinary biological and is regarded among top three animal health companies. For the ‘blue tongue’ disease, IIL is the only company that has developed vaccine for goats and sheep. Though this vaccine can also be used for cattle but its efficiency is yet to be proved and the research is under way to this effect. The company also provides other vaccines like ET, PPR, Sheep Pox, FMD and HSBQ.

For humans, IIL is already the largest producer and supplier of DPT vaccine. DPT is a class of combination vaccines against three infectious diseases in humans namely diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus. As part of its further research, IIL is also invested hugely to produce pentavalent vaccine, which will be launched soon in the coming years.