Page 91 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

ONDERSTEPOORT 100
laboratory a vaccine institute, which apart from RP vaccine also produced vaccines against lungsickness and blackquarter (from 1905, according to M.W. Henning), African horsesickness and human smallpox. The blackquarter vaccine still consisted of powdered infected muscle, as developed by Arloing, Cornevin and Thomas.
Vaccine production by the Veterinary Research Institute, Onderstepoort until 1968
The erection of the ‘Onderstepoort’ Labora-
tory was completed in 1908 and in Septem-
ber of that year the transfer of equipment
from Daspoort to this Laboratory started, a
process that was completed on 8 October.
The bacteriology laboratory in the new main
building produced mallein, tuberculin, and
vaccines for lungsickness and blackquarter.
Bluetongue vaccine, and serum and virus for
Theiler’s early immunization experiments on
African horsesickness – first used successfully
by him in mules in 1905 – were produced in a second labora- tory. Smallpox vaccine was produced in a small ancillary building separate from the main one in Onderstepoort’s early years.
According to Bigalke, the following types of vaccines and other biologicals were being manufactured by the Institute in 1908: two bacterial vaccines, four viral vaccines (one was smallpox vaccine) and two diagnostic reagents.
It is clear that at this early stage most vaccines and diagnostic reagents such as mallein and tuberculin were being produced in the same laboratories in which research was being conducted. This situation was to continue for many years to come. However, it is not clear which of these products were sold and in what quantities, but it is known that the Institute had an income of about £8 647 in 1908. The government probably paid for smallpox vaccine and it seems reasonable to assume that bluetongue and blackquarter vaccines were sold to farmers.
The research on protozoal diseases was probably also conducted in the bacteriology laboratory and Theiler per- formed his revolutionary research on anaplasmosis (for many decades thought to be caused by a protozoan parasite) of cattle in 1908 and subsequent years. In 1910 he discovered Anaplasma centrale, an organism less virulent than Anaplas- ma marginale. Infected bovine blood has been used as vaccine against the disease virtually ever since, although it has not been possible to determine exactly when the first doses were issued.
Theiler also developed a vaccine against bluetongue that consisted of infected sheep’s blood containing a single strain of virus that had been ‘attenuated’ by passage in sheep. This vaccine was used extensively since 1906 for vaccinating sheep for almost 40 years before it was replaced by more sophisticated products.
Theiler had also been studying redwater of cattle (caused by Babesia bigemina) virtually from his arrival, and more intensively after the turn of the 20th century. In 1904 he showed that the disease was transmitted by the blue tick, Boophilus decoloratus, (with the assistance of a collaborator,
John M’Fadyean, who was then principal of the Royal Veterinary College in London and to whom he sent the infected ticks to feed on susceptible cattle), and was already contemplating immunizing English cattle by injecting them with infected blood before exporting them to South Africa. In 1906 he did his first immunization experiments on six heifers inoculated in England with infected blood before being brought to Pretoria where they were ex- posed to natural infection, with very satisfactory results. Redwater vaccine was apparently routinely prepared from 1912 and possibly issued as a separate product initially but was soon combined with ana- plasmosis, making use of donor cattle with of the two parasites, and was sold for one
“It is clear that at this early stage most vaccines and diagnostic reagents such as mallein and tuberculin were being produced in the same laboratories in which the research was being conducted. This situation was to continue for many years to come.”
a mixed infection
shilling a dose. By 1915 it was one of several vaccines being produced by the Institute.
In the year from April 1916 to March 1917 Onderstepoort produced the following number of doses of four major vaccines:
181
Bluetongue
Babesiosis and anaplasmosis (then a combined product) Anthrax
Blackquarter
1 240 050
18 069 696 850 223 896
The above-mentioned anthrax vaccine was manu- factured according to the Pasteur formula. Production at Onderstepoort was initiated in 1914, according to Henning. The first spore vaccine was produced at Onderstepoort by G.G. Kind in 1920 after the method developed by Cien- kowsky in 1884. A much improved spore vaccine was pre- pared by P.R. Viljoen, H.H. Curson and P.J.J. Fourie in 1928. It was used extensively until 1937 when it was replaced by the highly effective spore vaccine, consisting of non-capsulated organisms, developed by M. Sterne. This vaccine is still used internationally today (see also Part 3: Bacteriology).
Blackquarter vaccine production was tremendously im-proved in 1929 when Green introduced a formol toxoid process. J.H. Mason and J. Scheuber further improved this method in 1936 by the addition of aluminium hydroxide as adjuvant.
The poignant history of the unravelling of the complicated aetiology of lamsiekte (botulism) of especially cattle in South Africa is described elsewhere. The toxin, present in decomposed carcass material, which is responsible for the paralysis was
Vaccine Production and Onderstepoort Biological Products
1908-2008
Years