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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2015 54 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2015

SEEDS OF GOLD. profile Daily Monitorwww.monitor.co.ug

BY PATIENCE AHIMBISIBWE

pahimbisibwe@ug.nationmedia.com

Where he comes from, when a child is born, the elders would give him or her a hen. When it

laid eggs, hatched them, and the chicks grew, they would be bartered for goats. When the number of goats increased, they would be exchanged for a calf.

Dr Vinand Nantulya explains that the essence of this tradition is that as the child grows, he or she would learn to take care of their own farm, and use the earnings to meet various needs.

What informed the research

“I come from a rural background with parents who did not go to school but appreciated education. They gave me all the support I needed,” Dr Nan-tulya recalls. He learnt to appreciate the culture but his frustration was that more often than not, the chicken would

succumb to fowl diseases. In particu-lar, the seasonal infectious outbreaks of Newcastle disease.

It is caused by a virus and is 100 per cent fatal in chicks and 60 to 90 per cent in adult chicken.

This is the background that informed Dr Nantulya’s research on veterinary diseases, which would later influence his career.

After 45 years of service in various positions and international postings, he returned to Uganda. He partnered with Dr George Mukiibi to form Bren-tec Vaccines Company in 2009. “I car-ried this childhood story. I am a medi-cal doctor who didn’t fully practise but developed interest in veterinary vaccines. This is the link to help farm-ers out of poverty by [dealing with] the diseases that threaten their [live-stock],” he says.

The pair has successfully developed a vaccine, called Kukustar, against

Newscastle disease and are set to roll it out in September. This is a step in the effort to tackle other livestock dis-eases.

“There is no treatment anywhere in the world for Newcastle disease. What we have is preventive. The vaccine is not a medicine. It is not for treating Newcastle disease. It is for protecting chicken, which are not yet infected. If your chicken have started dying, don’t buy the vaccine because it is too late,” Dr Nantulya warns.

How it was done

He adds: “Every year, there are out-breaks of Newcastle disease, which claim the poultry. We intend to set up a manufacturing plant to produce vac-cines for livestock diseases. We have started with this vaccine and we shall continue as times goes on.”

The study took the researchers 16 weeks. According to Dr Nantulya, a sample of 50 birds was identified and 30 of them vaccinated with a single dose of Kukustar. These were put in a separate unit while the other 20 did not receive the vaccine.

Fourteen weeks into the experiment, 15 of the vaccinated chicken were taken back to the same unit as those that did not receive the vaccine.

The unit was then infected with Newcastle disease-causing virus. The 15 vaccinated birds remained symp-tom-free as the others that were kept as a control unit.

Two weeks after the infestation, all the 20 birds, which had not been vac-cinated, died.

After this trial, other samples were taken for tests at Makerere University College of Veterinary Medicine and the results were positive after eight months of observation.

The vaccine later passed the Na-tional Drug Authority and African Union Centre of Livestock tests. After this, it was taken to Mbale District for a pilot trial.

With successes registered, the com-pany has the capacity to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine in a year. But, for the start, their target is 50 million this year. The farmers can now access the vaccine at Shs100 per dose per chicken.

“We have established a plant. Our dream is to go big. We can produce vac-cine for 100 million birds per year. Our next stage is introducing other poultry vaccines and to make vaccines for goat and cattle diseases,” he says.

All is well...

Given the expenses of putting up structures like laboratories, Uganda Industrial Research Institute offered to host the company under its business incubation programme. But Dr Nantu-lya says they should be able to acquire their own home in two years’ time.

So far, $1.5m (about Shs5.2b) has been invested in the research. This included ensuring that the lab meets international standards, procuring the right equipment and recruiting 10 staff, who were trained to develop the standard operating procedures.

“The problem with our banks is that their interest rates are too high. You can’t do business that way. If loans had friendly interest rates, we would have started long ago but we are looking at investors,” Dr Nantulya shares his frus-tration but all is well that ends well.

Many poultry farmers in Uganda lose their chicken to a host

of diseases but Newscastle disease is the most deadly as it is

rampant. Now, a vaccine is available to put the disease at bay.

BY PATIENCE AHIMBISIBWE

pahimbisibwe@ug.nationmedia.com

She was gifted to one of Beatrice Kagoya’s grandchildren by an uncle. As everyone celebrated

that they were going to have a special meal that evening—chicken sauce, the granddaughter instead insisted that the chicken be given a second lease of life.

The hen was then relocated to rural Kagondo in Kibuku District from Kam-pala. At the time of her arrival, there had been an outbreak of Newcastle disease in the neighbourhood.

Safe from disease

Luckily, a Kukustar vaccine, which boosts poultry immunity to resist the disease was on trial in the area. So the hen was vaccinated with it. The results paid off as it didn’t contract the dis-ease. “My grandchild brought this hen to the village. We gave it a vaccine to prevent it from getting Newcastle dis-ease and three years on, it has never fallen sick while others in the neigh-bourhood are dying,” Ms Kagoya said in an interview.

Two months after surviving the

slaughter chamber in 2012, the hen produced 12 chicks bringing their total number to 13.

This hen’s reproduction has proved to her new household how profitable livestock can be in a family. Because of her value, the hen was christened Dorothy.

Improve quality

Seven months after receiving Doro-thy into the home, chicken population continued to rise. For instance, of the 12 chickens born, five were female. These joined their mother in laying eggs months later, each hatching not less than 10 chicks.

The seven roosters were sold be-tween Shs15,000 to Shs20,000 each and the proceedings used to purchase a goat, which was pregnant at the time.

The price of a goat is between Shs100,000 to Shs200,000.

Today, Ms Kagoya boasts of seven goats in her compound as a result of Dorothy, the hen she received three years ago.

“I use the money I get from selling eggs and the chicken to buy soap, salt and pay fees for some grandchildren I live with,” Ms Kagoya said.

Dorothy is a sign of how birds can improve the quality of rural peasants by providing nutritious food (eggs and meat) and an income to pay fees.

But all this can be achieved by keep-ing the birds healthy. According to the vaccine researchers headed by Dr Vinand Nantulya, the increased sur-vival rates will give rise to a stable flock size and source of income from sale of eggs and birds.

He said the vaccines, which have been available have not been friendly to rural farmers because their stor-age and transportation requires a cold chain for delivery to the end user.

Enabling the farmer

This makes the vaccine susceptible to survival since not many farmers have refrigerators. However, the in-vention of Kukustar vaccine which is thermo stable as it can survive at room temperature will easily be accessed by farmers in most parts of the country to protect chicken against the vicious outbreaks of the highly fatal Newcastle disease.

This will improve the survival rate of poultry; clearly enabling the farmer to fight poverty.

mini farming> ‘How a hen bred goats and is still going strong’

Uganda scientists develop poultry vaccine

Advantages of vaccineUnlike imported vaccines which you

have to carry in ice, the Kukustar vac-cine is stable at room temperature. It can last for four days after it has been mixed. When it is still in its powder form, it can last 30 days. This minimises losses as many farmers neither have a source of electricity nor refrigerators.

• It is a live vaccine• Does not cause any illness. • Not harmful to human beings; you can

even slaughter and eat the chicken after injecting the vaccine

How to administer the vaccine A box has 20 vials with 5,000 doses. Get

one vial, which has the vaccine in powder form and mix it with water. Use a drop-per to apply the vaccine on chicken’s eye. This is protective for four months, after which you vaccinate again. But if there are many birds, you use can do it through water. However, it should not be tap wa-ter because it contains chlorine, which destroys the vaccine.

If you must use tap water, boil to evap-orate the chlorine. Otherwise, it is advis-able to use spring water.

ABOUT THE VACCINE AND HOW TO APPLY IT

Above, a farmer inspects the chicken on his farm. Right above, Dr Nantulya, one of the scientists who developed the vaccine shows how to use it. Right below, researchers conduct an experiment in the laboratory. PHOTOS BY

STEPHEN OTAGE