Uganda to Receive 3 Million FMD Vaccines from Egypt to Combat Outbreak

Summary:

• Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture will receive 3 million doses of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines from Egypt tomorrow to combat a current outbreak. This is the first batch of 10 million vaccines Egypt plans to send. The cooperation was confirmed in a meeting between Uganda’s Agriculture Minister Frank Tumwebaze and a delegation led by Egypt’s Major General Mohsen Abdel Hakam Azouz.

---

KAMPALA, (Examiner) – The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries will receive 3 million doses of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines from Egypt tomorrow to bolster efforts against the current outbreak affecting parts of Uganda.

This was confirmed today during a meeting held by Agriculture Minister Frank Tumwebaze with a delegation of Egyptian officials at his office in Kampala. The delegation, led by Major General Mohsen Abdel Hakam Azouz, Director of Egypt’s Veterinary Service Department, assured the Minister that the vaccines would arrive in the afternoon.

This shipment marks the first batch of the 10 million vaccines Egypt plans to send to Uganda.

Staff Brigadier General Mohamed, the defense attaché at the Egyptian Embassy in Kampala, noted that the vaccines are part of Egypt’s national reserves. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi directed their dispatch to Uganda after learning of the FMD outbreak.

“President el-Sisi ordered a quick supply of 6 million doses from Egypt’s strategic reserves to assist Uganda in overcoming the outbreak swiftly. The first batch of 3 million doses will arrive tomorrow,” Mohamed stated.

The delegation, which includes Prof. Dr. Mohamed Ahmed Saad, Director of Egypt’s Veterinary Serum and Vaccine Research Institute, and Dr. Abdel-Hamid Bazid of MEVAC Company, comprises experts in vaccine production and is exploring technical cooperation between the two countries.

Minister Tumwebaze praised the cooperation, stating that the goal is to enhance collaboration to produce a quadrivalent vaccine addressing FMD strains O, A, SAT-1, and SAT-2 in Uganda. Through this partnership, the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) will produce a monovalent FMD vaccine with serotype SAT-1, to be combined with Egypt’s trivalent vaccine covering serotypes O, A, and SAT-2, resulting in a complete quadrivalent vaccine.

The Egyptian delegation visited NARO’s National Livestock Resources Research Institute (NaLIRRI) laboratories in Nakyesasa, Wakiso district, to assess the facilities’ readiness for joint FMD vaccine production. NARO Director General Dr. Yona Baguma demonstrated their diagnostic capabilities for identifying FMD strains and highlighted efforts to start local vaccine production.

Prof. Dr. Mohamed Ahmed Saad expressed confidence in NARO’s expertise and laboratory capabilities but noted the need for additional equipment and specialized training to enable complete local production.

Staff Brigadier General Mohamed revealed Egypt’s interest in establishing a vaccine production factory in Uganda to serve the East African region. Maj. Gen. Kasura-Kyomukama, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, emphasized the importance of local vaccine production, given Uganda’s annual requirement of 88 million doses. He reassured the public that all efforts are being made to contain and eliminate the current outbreak, with the incoming vaccines supplementing the 900,000 doses recently dispatched to 46 districts.