In the United States, poultry vaccination is likely to focus on egg laying chicken, instead of the broiler chicken, which is raised for meat. During the current outbreak, more than 77 percent of the affected local poultry was the chickens of egg laying. In a press release of the US Department of Agriculture, Rollins said the agency was studying a “targeted and studied strategy” for vaccination.
But the broiler chicken industry is concerned that the targeted vaccination to place chicken would harm the United States, which is the second largest exporter of poultry meat. Ashley Peterson, Senior Vice President for Scientific and Organizational Affairs at the National Chicken Council, says other countries are likely to prohibit all American poultry products, even if the United States only put chicken. “When you move to a vaccine, you say basically that the virus is a settler and so we will deal with it,” she says. “We prefer not to deal with the virus. We prefer to eliminate it completely.”
The organization supports the current US Ministry of Agriculture’s policy of executing infected herds, as well as increasing biological security in farms – measures such as newly obtained animal quarantine, wearing protective clothes in poultry role, clearing shoes before entering animal areas, and cleaning farm equipment.
But Carol Cardona, a professor of bird health at the University of Minnesota University, says that biological security alone is unlikely to eliminate bird flu. “Farmers are very tired of hearing biological security because they are doing everything they really can,” she says. “Without more information about how these birds are injured, it is very difficult to properly target biological security.”
The virus can be transferred inside and outside poultry sheds on shoes, clothes and equipment that move inside and outside the poultry pans. Mice, rats and other small mammals can also carry the virus.
Cardona says that with the spread of the disease now, it will take more than a strategy to reduce the outbreak of the disease. “We were fighting this battle with one hand tied behind our back, and I think there are other tools,” she says. “We have to create new ways to remove them, and part of that vaccination will include.”
Even if vaccination does not always prevent infection, Lorenzone says it will continue to help reduce the amount of viruses that revolve in the environment, which would slow down the disease to more farms.
Commercial disruption can be brief. Rollins said that the US Department of Agriculture will work with commercial partners to reduce the effects on the export of commercial markets from potential vaccination. Lorenzoni says there will be pressure from other markets to maintain viable international poultry exchange. “It is in the interest of everyone to move as quickly as possible with these commercial agreements,” he says.
