Colombia advances in its efforts to mitigate the problems caused by the Streptococcus Agalactiae Ia bacterium that began in June in different farms. The Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) began supervising the vaccination of around 60,000 tilapia in the municipality of Sabanalarga, department of Atlantico.
From Wednesday until today, they have completed the first day of immunization, successfully administering the Tilavac S3 vaccine by Virbac to immunize over 200 thousand fish against Streptococcus Agalactiae Ia. The ICA has authorized the import and use of this vaccine for achieving immunity in the fish.
As of July 19, 13,185,004 million vaccine doses have been approved for importation. Moreover, during the upcoming week, around 12 million vaccine doses will be administered in the Huila and Atlántico departments.
The ICA also emphasized the importance of vaccination as a form of prevention. "Vaccination […] allows, through its use, to generate immunity in fish against the disease and, in this way, reduce the negative impact about the presentation of clinical signs and mortality. Likewise, vaccines also allow reducing production costs due to the use of antimicrobials."
Virbac is applying its inactivated trivalent vaccine. Tilavac S3, based on the bacteria Ia, Ib, and III, to animals weighing between 20 and 80 grams. In particular, out of the first 400,000 imported doses, they will administer 200,000 doses at the Betania dam, situated in the department of Huila.
The ICA is a national entity under the Ministry of Agriculture, responsible for safeguarding agricultural, fisheries and aquaculture and livestock production in Colombia. It prevents and controls risks to animal and plant species and negotiates trade agreements for agricultural products. Additionally, it ensures the quality of agricultural inputs and regulates the use of genetically modified organisms.
Furthermore, the ICA is responsible for bilateral or multilateral sanitary and phytosanitary agreement negotiations. This discussion allows the commercialization of agricultural products abroad and through which it seeks to guarantee the growth of exports.
