Page 41 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 1

duction during his career as Director and Deputy Director of the Institute is legendary. Vaccine manufacture had hitherto taken place in the relevant research section where the vaccine had been developed and the
ONDERSTEPOORT 100
for quality control of the vaccines, a media-production facility, a vaccine storage magazine and sales department, several research laboratories, offices for the senior management and
sections were based on disciplines such as virology and bacteriology. Once a vaccine has been tested experimentally and proved to be effective, the next step is to scale up its production to commercial quantities. Some sections, such as Bacteriology, pro- duced such vast quantities of vaccine that specially equipped, large laboratories were used for this purpose.
Weiss devoted much of his time and energy to the restructuring of vaccine production at Onderstepoort. He saw the necessity for, and started developing the concept of, centralizing all vaccine pro- duction activities at Onderstepoort as early as 1958. He was intimately involved in planning the new building with its archi- tect. The building would not only house the new vaccine factory but also a section
“Weiss not only introduced internationally acceptable standards for the quality all the vaccines produced by the Onderstepoort vaccine factory, but also drew up standards for imported vaccines. Onderstepoort’s research sections, such as the Virology and Poultry Sections, served as expert reference bodies to ensure that imported vaccines met the required standards.”
administrative staff as well as a restaurant. The new building was completed in 1968 and opened by the then officiating Minister of Agriculture, Mr Dirk Uys. The new factory was managed entirely by veterinary technologists, Weiss personally serving in the role of mentor and supervisor. Mr Valie van Rooyen served as the first manager of the factory, initially bearing the title of Chief Vaccine Producer and eventually that of Special Grade Veterinary Technician. Weiss not only introduced internatio- nally acceptable standards for the quality of all the vaccines produced by the Onderste- poort vaccine factory, but also drew up standards for imported vaccines which were applied by the South African registering authorities who implemented the Fertili- zers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies & Stock Remedies Act (Act 36 of 1947),
Some of the outstanding research achievements at Onderstepoort during Weiss’ regime
as director were the following: The discovery of the double-stranded RNA nature of the genomes of the orbiviruses (bluetongue and African horsesickness viruses) by Verwoerd
in 1969; the comprehensive characterization of the Clostridium botulinum toxins by Jansen in 1971 and his development of an improved vaccine against botulism (lamsiekte); the clarification of the orbivirus structure and replication and demonstration of the immunogenicity
of a single bluetongue virus (BTV) capsid protein by the research teams led by Verwoerd and H. (Henk) Huismans; the establishment of cell counting as definitive diagnostic test for bovine mastitis in South Africa by Giesecke; the ground-breaking studies on the pathogenesis of a variety of plant toxicoses, such as geeldikkop and gousiekte and fungal toxins by T.S. (Fanie) Kellerman, T.W. Naudé and J.A.W. (Koos) Coetzer and grootlam-
siekte by Basson and his team; and the isolation of a retrovirus that causes jaagsiekte (ovine pulmonary adenomatosis) by Verwoerd and his team. A.J. de Vos (bovine babesiosis)
and F.T. (Fred) Potgieter (bovine anaplasmosis) started
their fundamental studies on the life cycles of the responsible protozoan parasites and transmission
of these diseases in the 1970s, which led to new concepts of their epidemiology and much improved vaccines in the 1980s. Some healthy debate also arose over theories on the aetiology of geeldikkop between some of the pathologists led by J.G. Pienaar and the toxicologists led by Kellerman.
41
Consolidation of core functions ( 1961-1980)
1908-2008
Years