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Institute Secures $800,000 from Veterinary Vaccines Export  

ADDIS ABABA -The Ethiopian National Veterinary Institute (NVI) says it has secured 800,000 US dollars from the exports of animal vaccines to various African countries in ten months.

NVI’s Director General, Takele Abayneh said the institute’s primary aim is to produce affordable animal vaccines, veterinary kits, and biological kits for farmers here, and then export some to markets abroad.

The institute currently produces 23 types of veterinary vaccines.

It has fully met the domestic demand and earned 800,000 US dollars from export to the African market, Takele told state-run Ethiopian News Agency on Monday.  

This year, he said the institute has seen better export performance than the previous ones.

“We are distributing our vaccines to West, Central, and East African countries, and has secured over 800,000 so far” this fiscal year, Takele said. “We have also 1 million USD worth of orders for the next four months.”

The increasing demand is testing the institute’s capacity to produce more to meet the demand coming foreign markets and may need the government’s support.  

“We recently made expansion in the vaccine sector and built a new laboratory;” he said, “This is a good support, but not enough.” 

The institute has a limited capacity to meet the growing vaccine demand from foreign markets and requires modernized vaccine production technology to increase capacity.

“We are unable to acquire them due to lack of foreign currency,” Takele told ENA, urging the government to support the institute to get access to the forex.

Established 58 years ago, the Ethiopian National Veterinary Institut produces 350 million doses of vaccine per year.