‘Bird flu’ scare drives world to once-abandoned vaccines | – #Bird #flu #scare #drives #world #onceabandoned #vaccines

CASTELNAU-TURSAN, FranceFeb 17 (Reuters) – French duck farmer Herve Dupouy has culled his flock four times since 2015 to stop the spread of bird flu, but as a wave of deadly outbreaks approaches his farm again, he says he is embracing a once-taboo solution: vaccination .

“The goal is that our animals don’t get sick and don’t spread the virus,” Dupouy said at his farm in Castelneu-Tursant, southwest France. “Ours farmer our job is not to pick up dead animals.”

Like Dupouy, more and more governments around the world are reconsidering their opposition to vaccines because culling or locking up birds has failed to prevent avian flu from returning to commercial flocks that have been decimated year after year.

Reuters spoke to senior executives from the world’s largest poultry and egg producers, along with vaccine manufacturers and poultry companies. They all said there had been a marked change in the approach to vaccines globally due to the severity of this year’s bird flu outbreak, although the largest poultry exporter USAtold Reuters he was reluctant.

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In addition to the cost of killing millions of chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese, there is growing fear among scientists and governments that if the virus becomes endemic, it will have a greater chance of mutating and spreading to humans.

of France village “That’s why every country in the world is worried about bird flu,” said Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau.

“There is no reason to panic, but we must learn from history on these issues. That is why we are researching vaccines at the global level,” he said.

Most of the world’s largest poultry producers have resisted vaccines over concerns that they could mask the spread of avian flu and hit exports to countries that ban vaccinated poultry for fear that infected birds could slip through the nets.

Since the beginning of last year, avian influenza, or bird flu, has devastated farms around the world, due to disease or mass slaughter, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) told Reuters. 20It caused the death of more than 0 million birds.

Mass losses last year also sent egg prices skyrocketing and fueled a global food crisis.

USA SUGGEST

Mexico began emergency vaccinations last year, while Ecuador said this month it planned to vaccinate more than two million birds after the virus infected a 9-year-old girl.

Village France is on track to begin vaccinating birds in September before the return of migratory wild birds that could infect farms, said agriculture minister Fesneau.

Meanwhile, the EU agreed to implement a vaccination strategy in 27 member states last year.

Brussels has also normalized the rules for the vaccination of birds, which should come into force next month. Europe They will ensure free trade of poultry products and day-old chicks within the bloc, a commission spokesman told Reuters.

China produces most of the poultry meat domestically 20 has been vaccinating against bird flu for nearly a year and has been able to drastically reduce epidemics.

But the world’s largest producer of poultry meat USAstill stands.

According to WOAH, the United States was the worst hit worldwide with more than 58 million birds killed in the past year, followed by Canada, France and suffered the most within the EU.

But the fear of trade restrictions remains center stage for countries reluctant to vaccinate poultry against bird flu.

Although vaccinations can reduce mortality rates, some vaccinated birds can still contract the disease, effectively masking the spread of the virus.

Therefore, some large buyers of poultry and live birds have banned imports from countries where vaccines are allowed, fearing the spread of the virus.

Bird flu can also mutate rapidly and reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, while programs are expensive and time-consuming because vaccinations often have to be administered individually. And even after the birds are vaccinated, it is necessary to control the flocks.

USA Village The Department of Agriculture (USDA) told Reuters that “use of a vaccine at this time would have a detrimental effect on the poultry trade, while still requiring countermeasures such as quarantine, population reduction and surveillance testing.”

Philippe Gelin, chief executive of France’s LDC ( LOUP.PA ), one of Europe’s biggest poultry firms, said bilateral talks would be needed to clear exports to these markets and avoid unfair competition, given trade restrictions on vaccinated poultry.

French minister Fesneau told Reuters that Paris was in talks with non-EU trading partners to allow the export of vaccinated poultry, while bilateral talks were underway at the EU level with non-bloc countries.

MRNA FRAGAGE VACCINES

Brazil, the world’s largest poultry exporter, has so far avoided an outbreak and the need for vaccines, although the virus is catching up with several of its neighbors, including Bolivia.

But the losses of poultry farmers last year compensation 1.1 to do billion euro (1.2 billion dollars) spender France countries like believe that it is time to bite the vaccination bullet.

“This is a huge economic loss,” said Gilles Salvat, deputy head of research at the French health security agency ANSES. “We’re not going to avoid the accidental introduction of the virus through wildlife or through a contaminated environment, but what we want to prevent is the spread of these accidental introductions across the country.”

As part of an EU-wide strategy, France is testing vaccines for ducks, which are highly susceptible to the virus and remain asymptomatic for days, raising the risk of infecting other farms.

The Netherlands is testing vaccines in egg-laying chickens, Italy is testing vaccines in turkeys and Hungary in Peking ducks, and results from EU trials are expected in the coming months.

France’s Ceva Animal Health, one of the main companies developing avian flu vaccines along with Germany’s Boehringher Ingelheim, said initial results were “very promising”, particularly by dramatically reducing shedding of the virus by infected birds.

Ceva said it uses mRNA technology used in some of the COVID shots for the first time in poultry vaccines.

Sylvain Comte, Ceva’s corporate marketing director for poultry, said the global market for avian flu vaccines, excluding China, is about 1 in 800 million a year. billion it will be up to the dose.

The World Health Organization said last week that the risk to humans from bird flu remains low and there has never been any human-to-human transmission, and countries should prepare for any change in the status quo.

The recent COVID crisis showed the risk of a virus found in animals mutating or combining with another influenza virus to be transmitted to humans and cause a global pandemic.

In the latest bird flu outbreak, the H5N1 strain spread to minks in Spain, foxes and otters in Britain, in France It has killed several mammals, including cats and grizzly bears in the United States.

“We must be careful not to panic and not allow this virus to spread too intensively and for too long,” said Salvat at France’s ANSES agency.

($1 = 0.9351 euros)

in France Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Stephane Mahe, Cassandra Garrison in Mexico, Tom Polancek in Chicago, Ana Mano in Sao Paulo, Phil Blenkisop in Brussels, Michael Hogan in Hamburg, Nigel Hunt in London, Sarah El Safti in Cairo and Dominic Patton in Beijing; Edited by David Clarke

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

2023-02-17 12:55:17
Source – reuters

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