Some 1,800 day-old chicks have been vaccinated in opposition to chicken flu as a primary step in a two-year trial to check the effectiveness of two vaccines however specialists say the method might be accelerated.
Over seven million chickens, geese and turkeys have been killed within the final two years on account of the unfold of the extremely contagious chicken flu virus, which specialists worry has turn out to be endemic.
The trial, which will likely be monitored by Wageningen University, will run till 2025. The first outcomes are anticipated in summer time subsequent yr, the agriculture ministry said.
Virologist Thijs Kuiken mentioned the trial is a crucial step ahead however must be accelerated. “Ever since the bird flu jumped from poultry to wild birds the threat of contamination at poultry farms has been constant,” he instructed Nieuwsuur.
Kuiken mentioned the state of affairs severe sufficient to warrant a sooner rollout of the vaccines. “The two vaccines that are being tested are commercial vaccines which are already being used to combat bird flu outside of Europe and have been shown to work.
“There is no reason why they couldn’t be used to vaccinate all poultry in the Netherlands,” he mentioned, including that the delay might trigger many extra hundreds of thousands of chickens and different poultry to die.
The agriculture ministry desires the testing to be thorough, Kuiken mentioned, however there may be additionally a worry that Dutch large-scale vaccination with a vaccine that has not been formally authorised could have an effect on export to different international locations that aren’t vaccinating their chickens.
That worry is echoed by the Dutch union of poultry farmers. “If Belgium or Germany say, we don’t your vaccinated meat, we have a problem,” union chairman Bart-Jan Oplaat mentioned.
Kuiken mentioned the issue needed to be seen within the bigger context of intensive farming, not solely of poultry however pigs and cattle. “This not only increases the risks of infectious diseases but also causes loss of biodiversity and contributes to climate change. So if we really want to do something we must work towards a systemic change instead of concentrating on isolated actions such as this.”
Figures from nationwide statistics company CBS lately confirmed that the variety of large farms, often called megastallen or mega farms in Dutch, rose 3.7% between 2021 and 2022 and their quantity now totals 1065, regardless of authorities goals to cut back the size of intensive farming.
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