The School of Veterinary Science at the University of Queensland has been involved in Newcastle disease virus research and the development of thermostable Newcastle disease vaccines for more than twenty years. The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) funded most of this research which was supervised by Peter Spradbrow and involved international collaboration. ACIAR supported the development of the I-2 Newcastle disease vaccine master seed stored at the School of Veterinary Science. The master seed is distributed to collaborating institutions for use in producing thermostable vaccines to control Newcastle disease in village chickens in developing countries.
This manual summarizes the basic laboratory procedures used to produce and test experimental I-2 thermostable Newcastle disease vaccine in the research and training programmes associated with the John Francis Virology Laboratory. The content of the manual is based on an earlier manual written by Peter Spradbrow, Zuhara Bensink and myself. The original manual was prepared for use in a practical laboratory workshop held at the Poultry Reference Laboratory at Onderstepoort in the Republic of South Africa in 1995. The workshop was funded by ACIAR and was the first of a series of workshops that aimed to transfer the technical skills required for the small scale production and testing of Newcastle disease vaccine. The original manual was revised in response to comments from trainees and colleagues and used in several subsequent workshops.
After the second laboratory workshop funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Denis Hoffmann, Senior Animal Production and Health Officer of the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific suggested the manual be updated and rewritten for publication on the Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific (APHCA) website. The original content has been expanded and it is hoped the changed format will be easier to follow and translate. Comments are welcome.
Sally Grimes
John Francis Virology Laboratory
School of Veterinary Science
University of Queensland
St Lucia 4072
Australia
[email protected]
July 2002
