Center on Vaccine Evaluation and Alternatives for Antimicrobials
Our Mission
The Center on Vaccine Evaluation and Alternatives for Antimicrobials (CVEAA) at Kansas State University provides innovative services to our global partners and customers in the following three areas:
- Conduct safety and efficacy evaluation of vaccines for transboundary animal diseases
- Help animal vaccine buyers manage product specification and quality evaluation
- Lead feasibility analysis and policy advocacy on vaccines as alternatives for antimicrobials
Why do we establish the Center on Vaccine Evaluation and Alternatives for Antimicrobials?
The Center on Vaccine Evaluation and Alternatives for Antimicrobials is a research and service center designed to meet the following unmet needs in development and usage of animal vaccines around the world:
- The need to evaluate safety and efficacy of experimental vaccines for high consequence transboundary animal diseases has increased significantly since 2018, but the availability of suitable high-level biosecurity research facilities and associated expertise in public and private domains is very limited.
- Vaccines for transboundary animal diseases are frequently procured by international aid agencies. However, these agencies have very limited resources on “Fit for purpose” analysis and quality evaluation of the vaccines before they are purchased.
- The One Health initiative of promoting vaccines as alternatives to antibiotics in food animal production practice faces multiple challenges including efficacy, availability, and affordability of the current commercial bacterial vaccines. New policies and public-private partnerships are needed to accelerate targeted research and development of new vaccines to improve animal health and reduce antibiotic consumption and antimicrobial resistance risks.