In Uganda, a rapidly growing country in East Africa, livestock plays an important role in everyday life. Nearly 60% of households depend on livestock for their income. So any threat to the livestock population is a major threat to the people in Uganda.
Which is why ticks are on the minds of so many people there. Tick-borne pathogens are common sources of livestock deaths and are frequently responsible for devastating losses for Ugandan farmers. In fact, the FAO estimated that over 50% of these farmers’ annual costs go toward managing ticks and tick-borne diseases.
Ugandan farmers struggle to control the pests because the most common method is relatively ineffective at deterring the tick species that are most common in Uganda.
Those species—the brown ear ticks, blue ticks, bont ticks, and red ticks—have developed resistance to that method, which involves the chemical acaricide. An ineffective deterrent means more ticks; even a relatively small number of ticks can cause deadly infections and lead to financially-devastating livestock deaths.
Solutions through research
The National Livestock Resources Research Institute (NaLIRRI) exists to solve problems like these. An agency of the Ugandan government, NaLIRRI uses scientific research to find efficient solutions that will improve livestock productivity in Uganda. With ticks causing this much damage to the sector, finding a way to protect livestock is a top priority for the Institute.
Researchers at NaLIRRI were confident that the answer was to develop a vaccine because vaccines have been effective at controlling acaricide-resistant tick populations in many other parts of the world.
Specifically, they focused on creating a vaccine based on the protein subolesin that could specifically target Ugandan tick species.
They are currently running vaccine trials to determine the most effective mix of subolesin and other vaccine components, and this requires them to produce large volumes of purified proteins. It also requires specialized equipment that they did not have access to.
The components of NaLIRRI’s tick vaccine needed to be purified to 95%, a level requiring chromatography equipment that was out of reach. They had to spend precious time and money to have samples sent to Spain for purification.
The whole process was expensive and unsustainable. NaLIRRI needed its own equipment so they could begin producing the vaccine on-site in Uganda.
Paul Kasaija, PhD
National Livestock Resources Research Institute
Meeting a need with essential equipment
For 15 years, Seeding Labs has perfected a solution to this particular problem: we work with our ever-expanding network to make scientific connections across the globe.
As a 2022 Instrumental Access awardee, we already knew and had worked with researchers at NaLIRRI. We were invested in their success and in the future needs of the Institute.
At the same time, we had existing connections to corporations that could supply the piece needed to begin vaccine production. As a result of our longstanding relationship with Cytiva, we were able to secure an AKTA Purifier 100, the exact piece of equipment the institute needed. It is slated to arrive later this year with vaccine production beginning shortly after.
The benefits of producing this vaccine for ticks could be tremendous for Uganda’s development. The country’s population is expected to double in the next thirty years, meaning consumption of their livestock will almost triple. A vaccine designed to target Uganda-specific ticks would be an incredible asset to keep livestock safe and reduce losses.
It may take some time before livestock in Uganda are vaccinated and free of ticks. But the prospect of a vaccine is much more likely now that NaLIRRI has the right equipment to manufacture it on-site in Uganda.
