World Organisation for Animal Health urges bird flu vaccination for poultry to avoid pandemic

PARIS – Governments should consider vaccinating birds against bird flu to avoid having the virus, which has already killed hundreds of millions of birds and infected mammals worldwide, turn into a new pandemic, said the head of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).

The severity of the current outbreak of avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, and the economic and personal damage it has caused have led governments to reconsider vaccinating poultry.

But some countries like the United States remain reluctant mainly because of the trade curbs this would entail.

“We are coming out of a Covid-19 crisis where every country realised the hypothesis of a pandemic was real,” WOAH director-general Monique Eloit said in an interview.

“Since almost every country that does international trade has now been infected, maybe it’s time to discuss vaccination, in addition to systematic culling, which remains the main tool (to control the disease),” she said.

The WOAH is holding a five-day general session from Sunday, and will be focusing on global control of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI.

A WOAH survey showed that only 25 per cent of its member states would accept imports of products from poultry vaccinated against HPAI.

The European Union’s 27 member states agreed last year to implement a bird flu vaccine strategy. France is set to be the first one, starting with ducks in the autumn.

“If a bloc like the EU, which is a large exporter, starts moving in that direction, it will have a ricochet impact,” Dr Eloit said.

The US Department of Agriculture said on Friday that “in the interest of leaving no stone unturned in the fight against HPAI, (it) continues to research vaccine options that can protect poultry from this persistent threat”.

But it still considers biosecurity measures to be the most effective tool for mitigating the virus in commercial flocks, it said in e-mailed answers.

The risk to humans from bird flu remains low, but countries must prepare for any change in the status quo, the World Health Organisation has said.

Dr Eloit said vaccination should focus on free-range poultry, mainly ducks, as bird flu is transmitted by infected migrating wild birds. Vaccinating broilers, which account for about 60 per cent of global poultry output, makes less sense, she said.

The H5N1 strain that has been prevalent in the current HPAI outbreak has been detected in a larger number of mammals and killed thousands of them, including sea lions, foxes, otters and cats. REUTERS