Members of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) participated in a ground-breaking ceremony for the new African Union Pan-African Veterinary Vaccine Center (AU-PANVAC) laboratory and training center in Bishoftu, Ethiopia.
PANVAC is a continent-wide veterinary reference laboratory, co-located with the Ethiopian National Veterinary Institute (NVI) in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. PANVAC also serves as the only Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) approved Rinderpest holding facility in Africa.
The groundbreaking ceremony on Feb 21, 2024 was attended by African Union Commission Chairperson H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat; Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources Hon. Dr. Girma Amente; and U.S. Department of Defense Director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program at DTRA, Dr. Robert Pope, among others.
During the event, Dr. Pope highlighted the African Union’s critical and continued dedication to PANVAC’s success. “Today, we are celebrating the next phase of this important partnership to reduce disease threats. Through the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, DTRA has committed over $57 million dollars, or $3.1 billion Ethiopian Birr, to the design and future construction of the PANVAC facility and training center,” he said.
At the event, U.S. Mission to African Union Chargé d‘Affaires Mikael Cleverley said, “When we pledge to work together internationally on achieving global food security, I hope this shows how serious we are, not just with the African Union, but broadly, so that our goals can be achieved.” He added, “What I envision is not just food security, but food abundance, and I know that working with the African Union we can achieve that.”
BTRP’s partnership with PANVAC began in 2018 and includes the design of a new PANVAC high containment laboratory and training facility to consolidate laboratory operations and strengthen the facility’s biosafety and security for safe and secure handling and storage of pathogens and vaccine seed stocks, including Rinderpest.
The AU mandate for PANVAC includes conducting quality control of veterinary vaccines produced in and imported to Africa; producing and distributing biological reagent kits for animal disease diagnosis and surveillance; training; and providing quality control and technical support to standardize veterinary vaccine production for the control and eradication of animal diseases in Africa.