VACCINE PRODUCTION
The Tick-Borne Diseases vaccines and sore-diagnostic reagents produced at the Center include East Coast fever(ECF) vaccines CTTBD has in the past produces Heart water(Cowdria) vaccines, Anaplasma/Babesia vaccines and ECF antigen slides
The East Coast fever vaccines have been marketed within the SADC and East African region.The ECF vaccine strains produced include:
1.Muguga trivalent(cocktail)for East African countries including Malawi
2.Katete strain for Eastern Zambia
3.Chitongo strain for Southern Zambia
TRAINING
As part of the regional program in the control of Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases, training of staff responsible for livestock development became a necessity in order to support the member countries’ National Livestock Disease Control Programs.The Center therefore embarked on a series of training programs to fulfill this requirement.The first course was held in 1999
The courses offered at the CTTBD include:
a) Veterinary Epidemiology
b) Livestock Economics (Animal Health)
c) Advanced Veterinary Laboratory Diagnostics
d) Risk Analysis
e) Tailor made training courses
Tailor-made courses are designed according to the needs of the client and are both for local(Malawi organizations) and international organizations/countries. The courses have been conducted in English or French depending on the national language of the participants.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
At a working group meeting held in 2000, it was recognized by member countries that throughout the region there are a number of topics in the field of animal health particularly ticks and tick-borne diseases that need to be researched on.The CTTBD was mandated to seek collaborative work with reputable institutions pursuing various research topics particularly in the field of vector-borne diseases. The CTTBD has had collaborations with Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) -Belgium, Pfizer, Intervet, University of Pretoria Ondersterpoort Veterinary Institute(OVI), Ondersterpoort Biological Products (OBP), University of Zambia (UNZA), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), University of Malawi (Bunda College of Agriculture), Karolinska Institute in Sweden, University of Verona in Italy, Texas A&M university in the United States and various government laboratories in the SADC region