| Objective of Talk |
Vaccination is a complementary tool that has provided poultry with an additional layer of protection from high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI), complementing biosecurity, surveillance, and stamping-out measures. Vaccination supports safe food production and can reduce susceptibility, viral replication, shedding, and environmental contamination following HPAI virus exposure. HPAI vaccination has been mostly used in poultry of Low-and-Middle-Income-Countries (LMIC), but High-Income-Countries (HIC) are increasing vaccination use (e.g. France) while other HIC are considering the use of vaccination (e.g. Italy, Hungary, USA, United Kingdom and The Netherlands).
Vaccination, when used properly, has increased resistance to avian influenza virus (AIV) infection (1,000-10,000 higher exposure dose needed to infect), reduced AIV replication in respiratory and gastrointestinal tract which reduced shedding (decreased shedding by 100-10,000x) and prevented disease and death in poultry. This translates into reduced environmental contamination, reduced transmission to birds within premises, reduced spread between barns and premises, maintained livelihood of growers and food security of consumers, improved animal welfare and prevention of human infections. However, vaccination should be risk-based to the most susceptible species/production systems and geographic areas, and the vaccination program should practice Avian Influenza Vaccination Stewardship. Avian influenza vaccination should use best practices, and be transparent, rigorous and responsible, similar to the concepts used with antimicrobial stewardship.
Potentially, vaccination could be used in dairy cattle to assist in elimination of HPAI in these three vaccination scenarios:
1. Expanding outbreaks from new HPAI virus introductions and subsequent spread such as occurred with B3.13 HPAI epizootic during Spring –Fall 2024.
2. Unacceptable risk of HPAIV introduction into Dairy Cattle as occurred with high risk of introductions from infected wild birds, and
3. Recurring infections on farms from “persistent” virus as a mop-up activity.
The latter scenario could be used in a focused pilot program to determine the feasibility of vaccination as part of a control and eradication strategy.
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