Africa-Press – Ethiopia. The Ethiopian National Veterinary Institute has generated 800,000 USD from the exports of animal vaccines to various African countries in the past ten months.
The National Veterinary Institute Director-General, Takele Abayneh told ENA that the institute that produces 23 types of vaccines has fully covered domestic demand and earned 800,000 USD from export to African countries and it is also producing veterinary kits and veterinary drugs.
“The aim is to produce affordable animal vaccines, veterinary kits and biological kits for farmers. We covered the domestic demand of animal vaccines and biological kits, and exported some products to earn foreign currency.”
Many African countries have ordered for 1 million USD worth of vaccines in the coming four months and the institute is working hard to achieve this, he pointed out.
“We are distributing our vaccines to West, Central and East African countries. We generated 800,000 USD in this year. We have 1 million USD worth orders for the coming four months and we see better export market than previous years.”
The institute is facing foreign currency shortage to buy modern production equipment to especially meet the demand in Africa and the government has to support it with the required resources to create a suitable environment, he stressed.
“We made expansion in the vaccine sector. We built a new laboratory; this is a good support, but not enough. The institute will face limited capacity to supply the demand of vaccines in foreign markets. It requires modernization of vaccination technology and to improve production technology, big production equipment is required, but we are unable to buy due to lack of foreign currency. We are working with old equipment.”
The institute, established 58 years ago, produces 350 million doses per year.
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