Uganda is set to begin commercial production of its long-awaited anti-tick vaccine at a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Nakyesasa, Wakiso District, marking a major milestone in livestock disease control and agricultural research for the country.
The facility, valued at about 60 billion Shillings, was constructed with support from the World Bank and is a flagship project of the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO). Once fully operational, it will be the largest anti-tick vaccine production plant in the world, with a capacity of between 42 and 60 million doses annually.
During a guided tour of the facility, the Ministry of Finance Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Ramathan Ggoobi, was told that Uganda is now ready to deliver the vaccine to the market. NARO Director General, Dr Yona Baguma, said the country has positioned itself as a global leader in cattle research.
“Uganda is now a globally competitive leader in the field of livestock research and innovation,” Dr Baguma said. Dr Ggoobi commended the NARO team for translating research into solutions that directly address the country’s development challenges. “You are changing the dynamics of research and development by actively solving real-life problems facing our farmers,” he noted.
The livestock sector contributes about 4.4 per cent to Uganda’s Gross Domestic Product and nearly 18 per cent of total agricultural production. It also supports millions of rural households as both a livelihood and a form of financial security.
However, the sector remains largely informal, with widespread free-range grazing that exposes animals to high levels of tick infestation and tick-borne diseases. Tick control has therefore become a strategic focus in Uganda’s ambition to grow its economy tenfold by 2040.
“Under the Agro-Industrialisation Transformation Model Strategy (ATMS), agro-industrialisation is expected to contribute USD 20 billion annually for the next 15 years to drive Uganda to a USD 500 billion economy by 2040,” Dr Ggoobi said, pledging continued government support to help NARO complete the investment.
According to Dr Baguma, ticks account for annual losses of up to USD 1.1 billion (about 3.9 trillion Shillings) through livestock deaths caused by tick-borne pathogens. He added that once government financing is fully secured, NARO will immediately commence nationwide rollout of the vaccine.
Uganda’s most common tick species include brown ear ticks, blue ticks, bont ticks, and red ticks. For more than a century, tick control globally has relied heavily on acaricides. However, prolonged use and misuse have led to widespread drug resistance, significantly reducing their effectiveness.
The Nakyesasa facility was officially completed and launched in August 2025, but last-minute budget adjustments delayed its commercialisation. The vaccine, branded NAROVAC, works by stimulating a cow’s natural immune system so that antibodies bind to ticks’ internal organs, effectively killing them.
Final commercial production is now awaiting approval from the National Drug Authority, which is currently reviewing clinical trial results and auditing compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices. Meanwhile, the vaccine has already been approved for field trials and safety by the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, which reports an effectiveness rate of over 95 per cent.
Uganda continues to face extremely high tick infestation levels, which the World Food Programme estimates at between 80 and 90 per cent of cattle in some regions, particularly Karamoja. The economic burden is compounded by widespread tick-borne diseases such as East Coast Fever.
Collectively, ticks and tick-borne diseases are estimated to cause annual losses of about USD 86.3 million (roughly Shs300 billion), consuming more than 60 per cent of total farm expenditure on disease control.
But with the vaccine now on the brink of commercial release, Uganda’s livestock farmers are hopeful that a long-standing battle against ticks may finally be turning in their favour.
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