‘Don’t kill chickens, vaccinate them against bird flu’


This July 2015 video from the USA says about itself:

Despite some disagreement about whether to approve and deploy a vaccine against H5N2 bird flu, the latest iteration of such a drug appears to be remarkably effective.

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the House Agriculture Committee that researchers had developed a vaccine that was 100 percent effective against H5N2 in chickens, with testing in turkeys currently ongoing, reports CBS News. If approved, the vaccine could be produced and rapidly used in the event of further outbreak.

Another video used to say about itself:

FLU FACTORIES

1 January 2012

Crowding pigs into factory farms likely led to the emergence of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. So far, millions of people have been infected and thousands have died. Learn the inside story on the origins of swine flu and ways we can help prevent flu pandemics in the future.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands today:

But now also a chicken business in Ter Aar turns out to be infected [by bird flu]. Again, tens of thousands of chickens will be killed. Is that really the best way to fight the disease?

Just this week it was announced that vaccination is possible. Dutch researchers are the first scientists who have succeeded in developing a vaccine that can be administered on a large scale. One of the researchers, Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics Erik Frijlink, explains that vaccination is a better way to prevent outbreaks of bird flu.

The vaccine has been developed on the basis of H5N1, but the technique is also applicable for H5N8, the ‘Hekendorp‘ virus.

Believed to be the direct ancestor of all domestic chickens, the red junglefowl is an attractive game bird with a long history of association with humans. That association, however, is one of the greatest threats to this handsome bird – because of hybridization and domestication, this wild chicken is facing genetic extinction: here.

When food makes people sick, some blame birds because they hang around farms, and their feces can contain E. coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter, three common pathogens that can cause food-borne illness. But a recent Washington State University study published in Biological Reviews on Jan. 31 has found scant evidence to support the link between wild birds and human illness involving those three pathogens: here.