Dr Heath highlighted the development of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine factory as one of the achievements. He said the ARC's vaccine facility at Ondertepoort was built in the early 1980s as a national strategic facility for the production of vaccines, diagnosis and research on transboundary animal diseases. He mentioned that the FMD vaccine production declined over the past decades and was suspended in 2005. In 2010, the National Treasury approved funding of R220 million to establish a new state-of-the-art FMD vaccine factory. The project has three objectives, namely: