Global animal health body says vaccines needed to protect humans, trade from bird flu

Paris | Reuters — Vaccinating animals extra extensively might assist cease the unfold of lethal ailments, defend public well being and hold international commerce flowing, the top of the World Group for Animal Well being mentioned as chook flu disrupts Brazilian poultry exports.

Brazil, the world’s high poultry exporter, confirmed its first-ever outbreak of extremely pathogenic avian influenza, generally referred to as chook flu, in home birds final week, prompting export bans from a number of international locations.

Whereas most international locations depend on culling insurance policies and motion restrictions, the World Group for Animal Well being (WOAH) mentioned vaccination might assist scale back outbreaks whereas preserving commerce.

Why it issues: Canadian poultry and egg producers have been affected by frequent outbreaks of chook flu.

“Vaccination is a instrument, it’s an excellent instrument when it exists, but it surely’s as much as every nation, area, or group of nations to establish wherein case it will likely be helpful to make use of it or not,” Director Normal Emmanuelle Soubeyran advised Reuters forward of the beginning of WOAH’s common meeting on Sunday.

Greater than 633 million birds have been misplaced to chook flu over the previous twenty years, the Paris-based WOAH mentioned in a report on the state of animal well being launched on Friday. The illness has triggered mass culling, prompted billions in financial harm, and disrupted meals provide chains worldwide.

Chook flu has additionally unfold to mammals, together with dairy cows in the USA, and contaminated a whole lot of individuals, elevating issues it might spark a brand new pandemic.

If correctly applied, vaccination limits virus unfold, protects animal well being, and lowers the danger of human an infection. However it’s expensive to develop vaccines and roll them out, and vaccination applications typically result in commerce restrictions over fears {that a} illness might flow into unnoticed.

In France, a nationwide duck vaccination effort helped lower chook flu outbreaks from over 300 to only 10 inside a yr. The USA and Canada eased their ban on French poultry imports in January, citing good traceability and monitoring.

Most chook flu vaccination campaigns give attention to long-lived birds like geese or breeders. Broilers—chickens raised for meat – are sometimes not vaccinated as a result of they don’t dwell lengthy sufficient, which can restrict quick use in main poultry-exporting nations.

Vaccination has helped get rid of or management different animal ailments, together with rinderpest in 2011, the primary animal illness ever eradicated globally, and solely the second of any form eradicated after smallpox in people, WOAH mentioned in its report.

To deal with issues that vaccinations might disrupt commerce, WOAH is engaged on international requirements to tell apart vaccinated birds from contaminated ones, the so-called DIVA precept.

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