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The International Vaccine Bank (IVB) was established in 1985 by a group of countries wishing to maintain access to FMD vaccine in an emergency but unwilling to pay for maintaining and replacing stocks of ready-to-use vaccine. The IVB was consistent with Commission Directive 85/511 which called for EEC countries to have access to emergency vaccines.
The Bank replaced the United Kingdom (UK) Strategic Vaccine Reserve which had been established as one of the measures recommended in the Northumberland Report on the last major outbreak in the UK in 1967-68. A second measure recommended in the same report was to ban the importation of all sheep and pig meat, and bone-in non-matured beef from FMD-endemic countries. This measure is widely considered to be an important factor in the absence of FMD from the UK since that time.
The member states of the IVB (UK, Eire, Sweden, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Australia and Malta) are all free of FMD and would practice a 'stamping out' policy to control future outbreaks.
The Bank holds 0.5 million doses of seven strains of FMDV antigen over liquid nitrogen. A reformulation facility at the IVB can manufacture up to 200,000 doses of vaccine in a 24-hour period given 48 hours notice. Use would be confined to member states only.
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