By Ryan Hanrahan
Agri-Pulse’s Philip Brasher reported Sunday that “the Trump administration is preparing a plan for combatting avian flu that will move away from depopulating entire infected flocks and rely instead on ‘biosecurity and medication’ to contain outbreaks, says President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser.”
“Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday that he has been working on the plan with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and ‘all the best people in government, including academics around the country and around the world,'” Brasher reported. “…USDA has for years been requiring the depopulation of infected flocks to control the spread of the virus, a requirement that has contributed to skyrocketing prices for eggs.”
“‘The Biden plan was to just, you know, kill chickens. And they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken,’ Hassett said,” according to Brasher’s reporting. “‘And so what we need to do is have better ways, with biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens, have a better, smarter perimeter. And so having a smart perimeter is what we’re working on,’ Hassett said.”
Poultry Vaccine Given Conditional Approval
Reuters reported at the end of last week that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given a conditional approval to Zoetis to use its bird flu vaccine in poultry, the animal healthcare company said on Friday.”
“Bird flu has infected nearly 70 people in the United States, with one death, since last April. Most of those infections have been among farm workers exposed to infected poultry or cows,” Reuters reported. “…Zoetis, which deals with vaccines, medicines as well as diagnostic solutions for animals, said the conditional license was granted based on safety and reasonable expectation of efficacy. A conditional approval, called a conditional license, is used for emergencies, limited market availability, or other special circumstance and is issued for a finite period of time.”
“Last month, USDA said it would rebuild a stockpile of bird flu vaccines for poultry that match the strain of the virus circulating in commercial flocks and wild birds,” Reuters reported. “The U.S. had built a poultry vaccine stockpile after major bird flu outbreaks in 2014 and 2015, though they were never used.”
“Separately, Moderna is developing a bird flu vaccine for humans and has received about $766 million from the U.S. government for its advancement,” Reuters reported. “The company said last month it was preparing to advance its experimental shot, mRNA-1018, into late-stage trials based on preliminary data from an early- to mid-stage study.”
Brasher reported that “the United Egg Producers and National Turkey Federation wrote Rollins on Friday in support of using vaccines to control the virus. ‘It is imperative that a science-based surveillance strategy be developed in which infected animals can be distinguished from vaccinated animals, and that any validated, risk-based surveillance strategy must be agreed upon by our international trading partners,’ the letter said. The National Milk Producers Federation and International Dairy Foods Association also signed the letter.”
Vaccine Use Could Negatively Affect Poultry Exports
The Congressional Chicken Caucus wrote to new Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, however, saying that “to be clear, vaccination in any poultry sector – egg layers, turkeys, broilers, or ducks – will jeopardize the entire export market for all U.S. poultry products.”
“The problem is that most U.S. trading partners do not recognize countries that vaccinate as ‘free of HPAI’ due to concerns that vaccines can mask the presence of the virus,” the letter said. “Therefore, U.S. trading partners do not accept exports from countries that vaccinate, either for specific product categories, regions that vaccinate, or for all poultry from the country. In other words, if an egg-laying hen in Michigan is vaccinated for HPAI, it’s unclear to the rest of the U.S. poultry industry whether our trading partners would accept an unvaccinated broiler chicken from Mississippi.”
The letter says that U.S. broiler producers export more than 15% of production, at a value of nearly $5 billion.
Source : illinois.edu