This research was done in February 1993 and published
in Australian Primatology 8(1):13-16 (1993).


Primate Breeding for Vaccines in Vietnam 

Vu Ngoc Thanh
Department of Vertebrate Zoology
Hanoi University, Hanoi, Vietnam 

Vern Weitzel  
GPO Box 161
Belconnen, ACT 2616, Australia 
  Address for reprint requests.


Vietnam's Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (of the
Ministry of Public Health) operates a primate breeding
centre, the Animal Breeding Centre No 2 Cam Pha, Quang Ninh
Province on an island, Hon Reu Dat (Earthy Island), north of
the port city of Hai Phong. Established in 1962 to provide
primate tissues for vaccine production, the Centre has
operated continuously over the last 31 years. The Centre
supplies most of the 200 young stump-tailed macaques (Macaca
arctoides) required by the Institute's laboratories in Hanoi
each year. Stump-tailed macaques are found in forests of
Northern Vietnam. Even so, this is an unusual choice, since
stump-tailed macaques are relatively uncommon in research,
and rare in Asian forests.

Contrasting with the towering peaks nearby, Hon Reu Dat is a
low island surrounded by sandy beaches and on one side a
sand bar. The island is small (roughly 600 by 400 metres)
and is in a quiet bay only 3 kilometeres from Cam Pha.
During the war, this facility held up to 1000 stump-tailed
macaques but now only 600 animals are on the island. Another
smaller island nearby, Hon Reu Da (Stony Island) has been
used as an auxiliary site, but now no more than 30-50
animals are known to live there. Hon Reu Dat has been
gardened so undergrowth is sufficient to give animals
protection but does not limit staff access. Tree cover is
mainly coconut palm and Munecyclo edyle, both planted on the
island specifically as food trees for foraging animals.
Other plants are eaten by the animals but the current
population does not seem to overburden the island's ecology.
The only predator is a python. Although animals die for
various reasons, there is no good estimate of the number or
the cause.

The current Director is Mr Le Day Thinh who replaced Mr Kien
Ngoc Xon only last year. Both men worked in the Centre for
over 30 years. A total of 14 workers and their families live
on the island; this is essentially a family operation. Aside
from workers and their families, no one lives on the island.
However there is a guest house for occasional visitors. The
Centre has cage blocks located across the island (although
most animals are free ranging). There is a central food
preparation building, a moorage for the Centre's motorised
launch as well as small fishing boats used by staff. The
island's economy is largely self-sufficient, and until
recently, trips to the mainland were limited to the daily
mail run (since the island has no telephone).

Animal cages are simple roofed cage blocks, each typically
containing five contiguous cages. Styles vary little from
the earliest design through the most recent, built in late
1992. Each cage is square, with a simple swinging door and a
wall of bars in front, and frequently another door in the
back.

Although they have had little contact with foreign
primatologists, these technicians have developed among
themselves a body of practical expertise in primate
handling. They had to develop their skills by trial and
error, which was at the cost of the animals. When the Centre
was first opened, they tried keeping animals permanently in
cages, thinking that this was the best way to manage them.
About a quarter of the animals died, the infants suffering
highest mortality. So it decided to allow animals to run
free. Since then mortality has been reduced substantially.
(No statistics are available.) Other techniques, such as
feeding methods and diet regime were also developed by
experience with minimal access to scientific literature or
foreign technical support. Under the circumstances of the
war, this was quite a heroic effort.

Hon Reu Dat has no dispensary or veterinary staff, and aside
from general care, the staff cannot treat any major trauma
that may occur among the animals. The nearest veterinary
(and medical) clinic is in Cam Pha. The main strategy among
staff has been to reduce fighting among individual macaques
and maintain distances among macaque troops into and thus
reduce the risk of injury. During our stay we were often
told of the importance of this, as otherwise animals could
kill one another. The limitation of stress is a
cost-effective animal handling strategy.

The annual budget of the Hon Reu Dat facility is remarkably
low at US$200. And this is still higher than under the
previous Director who tolerated even tighter economic
conditions, disallowing trips to the mainland and operating
the generator for no more than two hours in the evening.
Under the government policy of 'self-sufficiency', the
people at the Centre are expected to exploit the land and
surrounding ocean to feed themselves. So the size of the
budget means much less than it would in a diversified
economy.

The limited budget and the constraints of self-sufficiency
also produce problems in feeding animals. Purchased food is
limited to bananas and few other fruits as well as rice and
black beans. Cooked rice and black bean is formed into
palm-sized balls to be distributed at feeding sites. No food
supplements are used. Staff tried to increase protein in the
diet by adding small amounts of fish to the rice and bean
mixture but this food was not accepted by the animals. Staff
are considering other ways to increase protein and
supplement the diet, but perhaps the best way to get
additional foods (such as insects, grubs and herbs) is to
allow the animals to forage for themselves.

The number of animals supplied to Hanoi is augmented by
about sixty animals from the mainland. These additional
animals are purchased from dealers or are supplied by the
Ministry of Forestry. The cost of these animals is between
US$35-40 each Apparently these prices are set by the local
export trade market which deals sells animals to China. Also
some new animals, mainly females, are introduced to existing
groups on the island. So primate production is not
self-sustaining from existing stock (as one would hope), nor
is there any concern to send only later generation animals
to laboratories. The number of excess animals required
depends solely on the requirements of the Institute of
Hygiene and Epidemiology and its need to produce vaccines.

We were given specific rules on how new individuals are
introduced to groups. The most common method seems to be by
holding groups together in a cage for as much as a month or
until a dominance structure is established. Animals are
captured by placing food inside open cages. Because animals
are normally fed near these cages and (if doors are open)
allowed to forage inside, they do not normally associate the
cage with capture. Alternately, a single animal may also be
held in a cage near a feeding area; if after some time the
animal seem acclimatised then the new animal is released
into the group. In a similar way, animals that have social
problems with one group can be introduced to another.

Invasive action is taken by staff only in certain
circumstances, for example when a female keeps a dead
infant. Attempts are made to stop fighting and remove
disruptive individuals or animals that are not accepted
socially within the group. Such animals may be placed in
cages in the troopÕs area for some time. If an infant is
taken by a male, the staff do their best to return the
infant to the mother and (if necessary) to keep the mother
and infant for a while in a cage. Dominance hierarchies are
determined among the animals with as little external
manipulation as possible.

In short, staff have very little technical knowledge of
primate behaviour, although they have a good practical sense
of the conditions that lead to disruptive behaviour.

Five distinct Macaca arctoides troops are found on the
island, each provisioned at a different feeding station.
Animals are provisioned daily, generally in the morning. The
size of each group varies and cannot be determined exactly,
since the animals are not captured regularly. Medical
testing seems to be limited or even discouraged (as this
might further stress animals). Troops are not tame in the
sense that they do not approach staff for hand feeding.
However as they roam freely among staff quarters, they have
acclimatised to island staff. Animals are transported in
small, one animal cages. These cages measure approximately
0.5 metes on a side

The Director discourages visits by outsiders, though several
hundred people each year may come to the island, most are
refused entry. There are two reasons for this. The first, as
mentioned above, is the added stress that visitors cause to
the animals. During our visit in March 1993, the authors
elicited much more threat behaviour than did our island
hosts. Such behaviour can lead to fighting, hence injury.
The second important reason to exclude visitors is to
minimise the possibility of introducing disease. So only
official visitors are allowed; signs on the beach warn boats
to stay at least 100 meters from the island.

The Centre has plans for expansion, partly as a result of
economic reforms in Vietnam which require agencies to
develop businesses which (in contrast to the
locally-oriented self-sufficiency of the past) will make
them self-supporting in an export-oriented money economy. It
is also suggested that there will be an increase in the
number of animals needed to make vaccines in Vietnam for a
supposed export market, but in fact the main purpose of this
exercise will be to export live animals. These plans are
made in the absence of knowledge about the nature of trade
and number of animals expected to be sold. Macaca arctiodes
is a poor choice for the export market. However the need to
find a source of income is paramount to the Director and, as
often happens in Vietnam, his knowledge of conditions
outside the country is limited.

The Director plans to extend the operation to a new island a
few kilometres south of Hon Reu Dat, if he can get support
of the order of US$60,000. The previous Director prefers
another inland location, on a large island in the lake
behind Hoa Binh Dam in Son La Province near the Laotian
border. A supposed advantage of this is the greater
availability of wild Macaca arctoides in this region. The
Director is proud of the acquired skills of his Centre. He
pointed out to us that the Peoples' Committee of Cam Pha
once started a primate breeding colony on an island in Ha
Long Bay. The venture failed as the people appointed for the
task did not have requisite skills. Presumably these animals
died, escaped or were captured by dealers.

It is worth noting parenthetically that collectors
associated with Chinese animal dealers have clandestinely
invaded the present facilities, usually capturing young
animals by shooting the mothers. Such animals are sold for
food and medicinal by-products. This has happened only a few
times, though one would expect many more such incidents on
an island so close to a metropolitan area. In fact, Hon Reu
Dat is a very quiet place, located in one of the most
beautiful parts of Vietnam. The staff were gracious and
forthcoming. They are keenly interested in exchanging ideas
with the foreign research community. Assistance in
literature and technology would be greatly appreciated.  And
of course they want to develop an export market, possibly
with expanded facilities.

However, it is probable that for some time the main value of
this Centre will continue to produce vaccines for the
domestic market. This is for several reasons. First, the
World Health Organisation (WHO) requires that Vietnam be
independent in the production of human vaccines. So for the
near future, Vietnam must rely on this technology. Yet, we
learned from Dr Dao Hop, Director of the Department for
Scientific Management of Agriculture and Health (Ministry of
Science, Technology and Environment) that Vietnam is only
now beginning to develop its capacity in biotechnology which
could supersede vaccines production from animal tissues. In
fact the first Centre for Biotechnology in Vietnam was
provided to the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology by
French Aid. But Professor Pham Thi Tran Chau, a Biochemist
and Parliamentarian who is a member of the National
Committee on Biotechnology advises us that it is preferred
that Vietnam develop new vaccines, essentially for the
export market. Whether this is the most economical
alternative is hard to say. Certainly, the number of
stump-tailed macaques available for use to decrease as north
Vietnamese forests continue to be erased. Then how will
Vietnam produce vaccines?

It is unlikely that there is much potential for exporting
Macaca arctoides. It could be difficult for the Centre to
shift to another species, especially since there already
exists a separate company in Nha Trang expressly designed to
export a variety of macaque species. The future of the
Animal Breeding Centre No 2 is thus in doubt.

We would like to thank Dr Hoang Thuy Long, Deputy Director
of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Dr Do
Duy Nam, Assistant Director of the National Institute of
Nutrition, Mr Le Day Thinh and Kien Ngoc Xon Director and
former Director of the Animal Breeding Centre No 2 as well
as their staff. This trip was also supported by the
Institute for Ecology and Biological Resources (NCSR) and
Hanoi University, whose assistance we appreciate. We thank
Jim Fenner for copy editing. Our views are not necessarily
those of the supporting institutions.

Address:
Animal Breeding Centre No 2 
Cam Pha, Quang Ninh Province
c/o National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology
1 Yersin St, Hanoi, Vietnam