SPF
The Production of Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) eggs is a ultimate in poultry industry. The large scale production of these eggs is a domain mastered and fully understood by very few specialists in the world. Apart from USA & Germany Venky’s India Ltd. (VIL) is one of the few producers in this high tech area and the first in South East Asia. At present Venky’s is the third largest producer of SPF eggs in world.
Venky’s India Ltd. (SPF Eggs Div.) , Pune had established Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) eggs production facility 1 st time in Asia in 1983, in technical collaboration with SPAFAS (Specific Pathogen Free Avian Supply) now known as Charles River Laboratories, USA - a pioneer & world leader in SPF Technology. In 1985 Venky’s had only one production site at Ambi (Tal. Velhe) with production of 4 lakhs eggs per year & now with additional three production sites viz. at Village - Pasure, Tal.- Bhor, and Village- Kouthadi, Tal.- Daund , Dist-Pune and at village- Bondri, Tal. Patan, Dist – Satara and now it has gone up to 12 million eggs/year.
The SPF eggs is the basic raw material required for production of egg based live viral vaccines for Human, Animal and Poultry. The European and Indian pharmacopeia made it mandatory to use SPF eggs for production of live viral vaccines. In the past these eggs were imported from USA or Germany at a very high cost and also there were losses due to breakage during transport. Due to easy availability of these eggs locally there is lot of saving in valuable foreign exchanges which was used by many Multinational and National vaccine production companies to produce lifesaving vaccines for humans like Rabies, Swine Influenza, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and yellow fever. At present all the poultry vaccines production companies in India as well as from Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia ,Malaysia use VIL’s SPF eggs for their vaccine production. Now India is self-sufficient in requirement of SPF egg and also exports it to neighboring countries.
The basic requirement for selection of site for production of SPF eggs needs pollution free environment in an isolated area. The poultry houses are entirely different from the other commercial open poultry sheds. The facility includes high tech structure for houses made up of cement concrete with Filtered Air Positive Pressure (FAPP) system using 10 micron, 5 micron, 3 micron and terminal HEPA filters of 0.3 micron size. Incoming air is passed through these filters with total air changes every 3 minutes.
Special feed formula is used for preparation of feed which is in pellet form heated about 85 Degree Centigrade. Animal protein source, antibiotics or probiotics are not used in feed and vaccines are not given to these birds during their entire life..
Potable water is provided to the birds by the nipple systems
Our three production sites viz. Kouthadi, Tal.- Daund , Pasure Tal.- Bhor Dist-Pune and Bondri, Tal. Patan Dist – Satara having ISO 9001:2015 certification and also compartmentalization against Avian Influenza by Govt. of India, Dept. of Animal Husbandry, New Delhi
A separate ultra-modern sophisticated Bio-safety two plus laboratory facility at Urawade, Dist- Pune is engaged in monitoring program of SPF flock as prescribed in European Pharmacopeia 5.2.2 and usually it starts from 4 th week of age and continued up to the flock is liquidated. Laboratory is equipped with latest equipments and having NABL Accreditation ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and also recognition as In- house R & D Unit by Department of Science & Technologies Govt. of India, New Delhi.
Scientific community over the years has been using SPF Technology in wider perspective for research in the areas of embryology, medicine, nutrition, genetics and immunology. SPF chicken and embryo have contributed largely for research. VIL has been a major source, for SPF chicken and Eggs and a boon to scientific community in the India, South – East Asia and developing countries.
- Usage of SPF eggs in the production of vaccine assures absence of extraneous agents in poultry and human vaccines. Please confirm this sentence-This sentence is ok.
- SPF eggs are predominantly preferred over an ordinary fertile egg for virus growth because of absence of specific antibodies in SPF egg yolks. This characteristics of SPF egg, in-turn allows to attain considerably higher titer levels of virus than that of ordinary eggs,
- Usage of SPF eggs for the production of live vaccines for poultry & human is mandatory, as per WHO, EEC and USDA standards.
VIL’s SPF Eggs are used for the variety of embryo based and cell culture derived viral vaccines, cell line development and research work in the field of Biomedical and Bioscience.
Such as:
Production of Avian Biologicals of International standards.
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Production of Human Vaccines.
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Development of Primary cell cultures & cell lines for research & diagnosis.
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Sendai Virus production for studies on Interferon – the antiviral substances.
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Isolation and characterization of infectious agents. (study of epidemiology of poultry and human diseases.)
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Basic immunological work. (Graft viruses host reaction)
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Conducting research on viruses from Human, Animal & Poultry.
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In the study of virus cell interaction in cancer processes.
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Use of SPF chicken for experimental work as sentinels for diagnostics and isolation of unknown viral infections.
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Use in preservation of sperms in In-Vitro fertilization.
