Vaccine is a "steel shield" against epidemics
Currently, there is a nationwide outbreak of African swine fever in 32 provinces and cities in less than 21 days.
According to Mr. Phan Quang Minh, Deputy Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), one of the reasons for the complicated African swine fever epidemic is due to the disease-causing virus having high resistance, complex transmission lines, making it difficult to destroy and lasting long in the environment, especially in the face of the situation of tossing sick and dead pigs into the environment on a large scale. The total number of large-scale but small-scale livestock farming still accounts for a high proportion, failing to ensure biosafety measures in livestock farming and disease safety; not implementing vaccination.
The Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine informed that Vietnam currently has 3 licensed African swine fever vaccines including: NAVET-ASFVAC vaccine researched and produced by TW NAVETCO Veterinary Medicine Joint Stock Company; AVAC ASF live vaccine researched and produced by AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Company; Dacovac-ASF2 vaccine researched and produced by Dabaco Group. To date, businesses have produced and supplied about 7.8 million doses of vaccine to the market.
Talking to Lao Dong, Mr. Pham Van Hoc - Deputy General Director of Dabaco Vietnam Group Joint Stock Company - said that the group is always proactive in vaccination combined with biosafety measures to respond to epidemics.
As for AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Company, as of September 2025, there have been 4.3 million doses of AVAC ASF Live vaccine issued to the market. Of which, 3.7 million doses were for domestic use, the rest were for export. To date, this company has exported to the Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria and is registered in India, Malaysia, Nepal, Myanmar...
AVAC ASF live vaccine was licensed for import into the first batch (160,000 doses) by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Philippines in August 2024. After carefully assessing 160,000 doses on the field, the Philippine Government has continued to order and import 340,000 doses for further use.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Huong - President of the Vietnam Veterinary Science and Technology Association commented that when an epidemic occurs, the solution often applied is to isolate and destroy the herd, causing great damage to livestock farmers and the industry. Therefore, for diseases without specific drugs, the development and dissemination of disease prevention vaccines plays a decisive role in minimizing risks, protecting production and food security.
Need to increase confidence for domestic consumers
Although it is the first country in the world to produce an African swine fever vaccine and be released for free trade, the domestic vaccination rate is still low (under 10%), not creating mass immunity.
According to Dr. Nguyen Van Diep - General Director of AVAC Vietnam Joint Stock Company, one of the main reasons is that domestic farmers still do not have much faith in vaccines.
"Currently, AVAC ASF livelihood vaccine has not been applied to sows and breeding pigs. In addition, in Vietnam, there has been the appearance of the recombined virus strain between Genotype I and II - this strain is highly monopolized, mainly circulating in the North Central region, accounting for 20-60%. Meanwhile, the current vaccine mainly protects the genotype II virus and is poorly protected against cross- variants, so people are still hesitant and lack trust," said Mr. Diep.
According to Dr. Nguyen Van Diep, the company is also researching and developing a new generation vaccine, expected to be registered for circulation in 2026.
Previously, at the Conference "Preventing and combating African swine fever and controlling slaughter", Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Phung Duc Tien emphasized the need to increase people's trust in the vaccine produced in Vietnam.
"The vaccine is now priced at 62,000 - 63,000 VND/ck but is still difficult to access for pig farmers. The responsibility belongs to us, we need to analyze and solve the problem. If the African chills epidemic is not completely resolved, it will be difficult to achieve the target of 70 billion USD in exports, growth of 4%; livestock increase by 5.75%, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien said.
