Replacement, reduction or refinement of animal use in the quality control of veterinary vaccines: development,...

Various different methods have been developed to replace, reduce or refine the use of animals in batch quality control tests of veterinary vaccines. The development, validation and implementation of those alternatives which lead to a significant reduction in the numbers or the suffering of the animals used must receive priority. Validation is one of the hurdles to the implementation of alternative methods into relevant legislation, so it deserves special attention. For proper validation studies, co-operation between various organisations of both government and industry is necessary. International and national organisations such as ECVAM, FRAME, SIATT, ZEBET and the recently established Netherlands Centre Alternatives to Animal Use (NCA) could contribute significantly to the development, validation and implementation of alternative methods by simulating and co-ordinating research projects, by providing information through databases, and by co-ordinating validation studies.