waves of Avian influenza H5N1 has hit 76 countries to date, creating a national emergency and causing the deadliest animal disease epidemic in U.S. history, but it continues to ravage wild and commercial poultry. More than 140 million poultry worldwide have died from the virus or been slaughtered to prevent its spread, according to the World Animal Health Organization. .
Something has to brake. In the United States, where nearly 60 million birds have been lost, industry experts are quietly discussing taking steps that have long resisted. It’s about vaccinating commercial chickens and breeding chickens, turkeys and ducks from the flu.
It doesn’t sound controversial. After all, human flu vaccinations are routine, and chickens have already received several doses of vaccines in the first few days of life. However, only a few countries routinely vaccinate poultry against avian influenza. The introduction of a vaccine could crush the huge US export market, pit the poultry trade sectors against each other, and trigger a trade ban that could spark consumer anxiety over food safety.
Officially, therefore, the industry is against what would be a drastic measure. But privately (and no one will tell you the record) poultry company scientists say there is no other exit strategy. Researchers working with U.S. industry also say there may be little choice but to launch vaccinations, but that the U.S. alone cannot embark on them.
“Vaccination is being debated globally because it will be a global decision,” said Karen Burns-Grogan, a veterinarian and clinical associate professor at the University of Georgia Poultry Diagnostics and Research Center. (Georgia produces about 1.3 million broiler or meat chickens annually, more than any other state.)
But that decision is never guaranteed. After a major outbreak in 2015, the federal government commissioned a limited stock of bird vaccines against his H5N1 flu, which may not be able to control the currently circulating strain. The USDA does not authorize their use. Also, scaling up supplies in sufficient quantities to protect billions of birds would require a large manufacturing effort and, likely by hand, a significant amount of labor.
Discussion is urgent. H5N1 influenza continues to infect humans. Most recently, in Cambodia, her 11-year-old girl died and her father fell ill. to others. It has adapted rapidly to mammals and has recently killed sea lions off the coast of Peru and farmed mink in Spain.
The H5N1 flu also kills countless, possibly vast numbers of wild birds. This is a change from the historical pattern of wild birds carrying the virus not getting sick. “The impact on wild bird populations is unprecedented,” says Peter Mara, an ornithologist and director of Georgetown University Earth’s Commons Laboratory. “Huge numbers of boobies and other species have disappeared. Not just the United States, but the entire Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Africa.”
