Established in 1980 in Lilongwe, the Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL) – under the Department of Animal Health and Livestock Development (DAHLD) – supports national efforts to control and eradicate animal and zoonotic diseases and enforce standards through its core functions, which include:

• Providing sustainable animal disease diagnostics and investigations to support field services
• Conducting demand-driven animal health research to develop commercially attractive and cost-effective technologies
• Protecting consumers via veterinary public health services like meat and milk quality control and dairy inspections
• Ensuring livestock feed standards are being met by registering and licensing processing plants
• Supplying epidemiological data for policy-making, and
• Training field and laboratory staff to enhance laboratory services nationwide.

The current staff of 24 technicians, mainly composed of veterinary specialists, has over 44 years of experience in offering veterinary services.

Improving Quality Standards through Strengthened Regulatory Oversight

This project demonstrated to other development agencies the role of the market systems approach in building Malawi’s poultry industry through emphasis on the supporting regulatory functions.

This 18-month partnership (December 2020 to May 2022) focused on assessing not only the standards in poultry input (feeds) and output (meat) markets but also the levels of understanding and awareness of the standards. It advocated for the review, amendment, and enforcement of relevant standards through stakeholder dialogues and engagement. Through the assessment it found low levels of awareness – and at worst an unwillingness to enforce them, so the project reached out and trained 108 Community Animal Health Workers in poultry production standards. At a total cost of £80,936, the CASA contribution was £61,889 through technical assistance and a grant for dialogue meetings and workshops. During the Covid-19 pandemic period, CASA additionally supported local production of Newcastle Disease vaccine and ensured these reached 22,399 smallholder poultry farmers. Availability of vaccines had been compromised by failure to import due to Covid restrictions. 

Updated: July 2025