Avian influenza vaccination can not fully immunise birds, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) mentioned in a report revealed on 17 April, as France banked on it to scale back chook culling, make sure the continuation of exports, and scale back the illness’s financial impression.
EFSA really helpful month-to-month testing of useless birds to show the absence of the illness to safeguard the motion of poultry and associated merchandise.
“Vaccination is recommended”, the pinnacle of EFSA’s Biological Hazards and Animal Health and Welfare Unit, Frank Verdonck mentioned in a press launch, including,“Nonetheless, there is a need to follow up with a strategic surveillance scheme and implement measures to reduce the risk of virus transmission,”
The report is the second a part of a EFSA scientific opinion on the vaccines available within the EU.
In the primary half, EFSA had already really helpful that vaccination must be thought of as a complement and to not substitute different biosecurity measures, reminiscent of monitoring.
In the latest EFSA overview on the biggest avian flu epidemics within the EU, the authority refers to three.5 million home birds useless or culled between December 2023 and March 2024 in excessive pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) affected poultry farms.
According to European Commission’s information, in 2016-17, greater than 9 million animals had been culled and 12.5 million in 2020-21.
Among the internationally acknowledged biosecurity measures wanted to curb the unfold of HPAI there are mass culling and restrictions to motion. This implies prices for the enterprises.
A 2008 World Bank report estimated the financial penalties of the epidemics as much as 0.7% of world GDP, 0.4% in Europe and central Asia.
Agri ministers name for a vaccine technique
In 2022, EU agriculture ministers agreed on a technique for vaccination, additionally bearing in mind restrictions on the poultry commerce associated to vaccines.
Countries just like the UK, the US, and Saudi Arabia, for instance, are at present refusing to purchase from nations practising vaccination for concern of importing the virus into their territory.
The concept of vaccination has been pushed particularly from France, which in october 2023 began up €100 million vaccination programme, counting over 25 million geese handled on 25 March.
The vaccination is obligatory for farms with greater than 250 geese in an try to curb the deaths, the culls, and the restriction to the motion of poultry.
Last January nationwide authorities detected an outbreak in a duck farm that adopted the vaccination programme.
It is “known” that vaccination doesn’t fully get rid of the chance of an infection nevertheless it reduces “viral circulation”, French authorities mentioned.
[Edited by Alice Taylor]
