What could be the future of Avian Influenza vaccination ?
Yannick GARDIN, DVM Director Science and Innovation at Ceva Animal Health
Yannick GARDIN, DVM Director Science and Innovation at Ceva Animal Health
Avian Influenza has dramatically and deeply changed since a few years, and is now induced by more types of viruses than before, also present in more countries than before. These more recent viruses are also better “adapted” to wild waterfowl populations. They are not behaving as HPAIV in wild waterfowl so that they can be carried on much longer distances. This is unfortunately helping the spreading of the disease and has changed the vision we had of it and of its control. The risk is much higher than it was and it is really the right time to forget about the old dogmas and adapt to this new situation.
In the meantime, fortunately, a new vaccine has been developed that can answer most of the objections that we had against vaccination.
Many experiments have already been conducted with it, and it has shown strong capacities to protect against a wide variety of different H5 type HPAIV as well as to overcome the presence of MDAMaternally Derived Antibodies: antibodies produced by the breeders and transmitted to their progeny through the egg yolk. and be used reliably at the hatchery. These features did not exist for classical vaccines used until now. It is believed that, as of today, and because of this new rHVT-HA5 vaccine, vaccination can no longer be neglected but needs to be considered as a real tool to protect the poultry industry against clinical and economical losses without impairing the implementation of a truly efficacious disease monitoring system aiming at eradication.
Recent experiments have demonstrated the efficacy of this vaccine against circulating HPAIVs of the H5 serotype.
It is also believed that more funds should be dedicated to research on AIAvian Influenza vaccines. We cannot only keep on dedicating means to understand the rain and the ways to control it. It is now time to work more intensively on umbrellas.