The state-owned vaccine manufacturer, Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), wishes to announce that it has signed a licensing agreement with Moredun Institute in Scotland, UK, to acquire the technology which will lead to the final development, registration, and production of the vaccine against Bovine Malignant Catarrhal Fever (BMC) or “Snotsiekte”, which is a fatal disease that has been causing serious losses in the cattle farming community over the past few decades in South Africa.
BMC, commonly known as “snotsiekte”, is a notifiable and untreatable viral disease, which is found in cattle, and is predominantly transmitted by black and blue wildebeest. Dr Peter Oberem, veterinarian and game farmer says: “It is a virus carried specifically by healthy wildebeest. When the wildebeest become stressed, due to calving or weaning, the immunity is suppressed and they shed the snotsiekte virus from the respiratory tract. Cattle within a vicinity of a kilometre of these shedding wildebeest will begin to show symptoms, a month or more after exposure.