Vaccinate birds agains AI ? No that easy

Hit by an unprecedented avian flu pandemic, the United States is seriously considering launching a campaign.

The largest outbreak of avian influenza in U.S. history has driven up egg prices and raised concerns about a human pandemic, though C.D.C. experts say the risk of that is low.

In the decades that followed, alarm bells from the scientific community rang louder and louder. H5N1 began infecting dozens more species, from tens of millions of wild and farmed birds, to raccoons and foxes, to seals and sea lions to, most recently, U.S. dairy cattle. The virus eventually caused more than 800 human infections around the world with a stunning death rate — for known cases — of roughly 50 per cent.

At the same time, officials at the federal Agriculture Department, which is responsible for the health of farm animals, say they have begun testing potential poultry vaccines and initiated discussions with industry leaders about a large-scale bird flu vaccination program for poultry, which would be a first for the United States.

Farm birds are already vaccinated against infectious poultry diseases, such as fowlpox. But an avian influenza vaccination program would be a complex undertaking, and poultry trade associations are divided over the idea, in part because it might spawn trade restrictions that could destroy the $6 billion poultry export industry. Dr. Carol Cardona, an expert on avian health at the University of Minnesota, said that the fear of trade bans was a huge barrier to the mass vaccination of poultry.

Source: New York Times