MSD Animal Health has announced that it has discontinued the production of its leptospirosis vaccine, Bovilis Leptavoid-H.

Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that often leads to reduced milk production, decreased fertility and abortions in cows.

“Bovilis Leptavoid-H was developed more than 30 years ago, and while this unique vaccine (which immunises against Leptospira interrogans serovar Hardjo) has a strong safety and efficacy profile, it has always proven very difficult to produce, creating recurrent supply challenges,” MSD ruminant business unit director, Jack O’Connor said.

“Despite multiple years of improvement and remediation efforts, we have not been able to consistently supply the market with a product that meets our strict quality standards.

“Therefore, we have had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the production of Bovilis Leptavoid-H.

“MSD Animal Health is a strong advocate for the important role vaccination plays in reducing the incidence and severity of disease, protecting animal welfare and enabling efficient farming of livestock,” he said.

Major concern

IFA animal health chair TJ Maher said the news that MSD has ceased production of Leptavoid-H, a widely used vaccine used on cattle for leptospirosis is a major concern to Irish farmers who are now left scrambling to secure an alternative lepto vaccine.

“This will create a serious issue for farmers who are due to administer a lepto vaccine to their herd in the coming months,” Maher said.

“Reports from our members indicate that there are little alternatives currently available with one of the key alternative vaccines not available until September. This could mean that a lot of cattle herds will lose protection from leptospirosis if they miss their annual booster shot,” he said.

The IFA animal health chair outlined that the availability of vaccines when needed is critical for farmers in protecting and maintaining the health, welfare and productivity of our animals while reducing antibiotic usage.

“These actions are being severely hampered on farms by the failure of the Department of Agriculture to ensure there are adequate supplies of suitable products available in the marketplace,” Maher said.

Shortages

“Over the last number of years farmers have experienced increasing shortages of certain vaccines at critical times and here we are with the same problem yet again. Pasteurella vaccine availability has been especially problematic this year,” he added.

“There have been several special import licences issued for alternative vaccines, but these often come too late after supplies have been depleted. The Department of Agriculture must be more proactive in identifying potential supply issues at an early stage and intervene to avoid a situation like we are facing now where farmers may not be able to protect their herd from a potentially very harmful disease,” Maher said.

“These vaccines are too important to animal and human health; we cannot have situations where these vaccines become unavailable to farmers,” he concluded.