National Veterinary Laboratory (NVL)

A Glance Overview:

The National Veterinary Laboratories (NVL), Islamabad is a national institution for service and regulatory support to national livestock wealth with a mission to promote greater productivity and profitability from the livestock industries in Pakistan. These state of the art laboratories are capable of catering needs in advanced applied biotechnology, bacteriology, virology, analytical chemistry, biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, toxicology, pathology, parasitology and exotic diseases.

The surveillance and diagnostics at NVL remain unique and a strategic facility designed to enable work to be conducted safely on highly contagious diseases of animals and housed National and Regional Projects on prevention and control of Transboundary Animal Diseases in Pakistan. The laboratory offered diagnostics and referral work on important veterinary diseases in the country. Collaboration developed with FAO for the molecular characterization of FMD field isolates is yielding valuable information on sub-types of FMD virus circulating in the cattle population of the country. Such information is useful for progressive control of FMD in the country. The practice of vaccine quality control (VQC) prompted manufacturers of veterinary vaccines to keep the required quality and thus to support disease control in the country. The newly emerged waves of bird flu virus was flushed with the continuously quality controlled vaccines from VQC laboratories besides other measures after declaration of mandatory requirement of QC of Avian Influenza Vaccine in the country, which has very positively helped out the process in control and freedom of country from bird flu.

The residues and drug analysis facility having wide range of sophisticated engineering containments in order to assure confidence of consumers and exporters in livestock and livestock by-products remained in operation. The section attained pre-eminence due to its need in scenario of WTO and veterinary public health requirement. Apart from tests requested there was continuous market surveillance for residues and quality estimation of drugs available to consumers and the animal growers, information thus generated is proving useful for the awareness of the farmers and for provincial and federal governments for regulatory oversight of processors and the manufacturers.

The training and visits of veterinarians from provincial and district organizations to learn prevention and control of economically important diseases and gain awareness to appropriate laboratory techniques paid dividend in harmonizing and standardizing the performance of techniques and disease reporting in the country to support an orderly and reliable animal health information system.

The laboratory has a covered area of 21979 sq. feet with ten operational and fully functional laboratories with allied support structures including fully equipped conference room and a technical library. It had an annual spending of around Rs. 16 million with 10-15 thousands test analyses annually through 19 technical and 32 support staff. The laboratories are participating component of FAO, GCP/Pak/123/USA Progressive Control of FMD in Pakistan and the National Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (NAPHIS) Project besides the UNIDO, Technical Related Assistance (TRTA-II) Program. The NVL has been chosen by TRTA-II for the international accreditation system of laboratory testing to support trade from Pakistan.

The samples for analyses at NVL come from provincial livestock departments, development projects, FATA, AJK, NGOs, related government departments, Remount Veterinary Corps (RVFC), Animal Quarantine Department (AQD) and Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) in addition to routine and structured surveillance of diseases. While continuous attention is paid to Highly Pathogenic Emerging Disease (HPED) in coordination with internationals and regional programs and organizations (FAO, WHO, OIE, EC, SAARC). Vigilance and arrangements for Rinder pest (RP) disease & infection free status of Pakistan is remain maintained with contingency plan intact. Keeping in view the importance of Food & Mouth Disease in productive animals and its implication on exports, the laboratory continuously provided the exclusive free of charge facility for FMD virus typing. Similarly, PPR a disease being the most important limiting factor for sheep & goat farmers in the country has been kept at high priority and its diagnostics and surveillance facility has been maintained and offered, besides working on nation wide serum analyses to understand epidemiology of disease. Information collected from PPR sero-surveillance is being used for policy planning and laying down strategy for its control. The poultry industry in the country remains threatened with the waves of Avian Influenza (Bird Flu), though no outbreaks have been recorded since June 2009. Pakistan is one of the six countries in the world who have adopted the vaccination as an element of bird flu control policy; however, success to such a strategy lies in quality of vaccine. As an assigned task, NVL especially undertakes quality testing of bird flu vaccines (imported/ or local); which has helped a reliable supply of quality AI vaccines in the market resultantly supporting the control of disease.

Residues and drug testing activities are fairly new to the country therefore priority was remained kept high yielding consumers, processors and export partners awareness. This activity is now being widely recognized. The training facilities at NVL for introduction to lead technologies in animal health are objectively utilized by the federal entities, development projects and provincial departments. The testing facilities created at NVL aims at enhancing confidence of national and international community in the animal health management in the country using most sensitive and internationally acceptable techniques and for service and regulatory oversight of its nation wide clients from Remount Veterinary Corps to the remotely occurring development projects. Since NVL’s inception, more than 40 studies performed on the technical aspects have been published in national and international scientific and technical journals.