Vaccinating poultry ‘cuts risk of bird flu outbreaks’

Chicken farm in Eritrea Copyright: FAO / R. Faidutti

By: Catherine Brahic

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Vaccinating poultry ‘cuts risk of bird flu outbreaks’</h1>
<h4>By: Catherine Brahic</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>Vaccinating poultry can prevent outbreaks of highly infectious bird flu, according to research published online this week by <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em>. </P><br />
<P>Although several countries, including China and Indonesia, have vaccinated poultry to prevent the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus spreading, critics say this approach only suppresses symptoms without killing the virus. </P><br />
<P>The concern is that this could lead to ‘silent epidemics’ where the virus spreads unnoticed. </P><br />
<P>But researchers led by Jeanet van der Goot of the Central Institute for Animal Disease Control in the Netherlands have now shown that two vaccines can completely stop transmission of the H7N7 bird flu virus in chickens. </P><br />
<P>H5 and H7 are distinct classes of bird flu viruses. The H5N1 strain has killed 68 people since 2003. </P><br />
<P>The team used the H7N7 virus because there was an outbreak of this strain in the Netherlands in 2003, when the study began. </P><br />
<P>However, “the principle is the same”, for other strains, says co-author Guus Koch.</P><br />
<P><a  href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0505098102" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to abstract of paper by van der Goot <em>et al.</em></A> </P><br />
<P>Reference: <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em> doi10.1073/pnas.0505098102 (2005)</P><br />
<P><EM></EM> </P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/news/vaccinating-poultry-cuts-risk-of-bird-flu-outbrea-seaap/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/news/vaccinating-poultry-cuts-risk-of-bird-flu-outbrea-seaap/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Vaccinating poultry can prevent outbreaks of highly infectious bird flu, according to research published online this week by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Although several countries, including China and Indonesia, have vaccinated poultry to prevent the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus spreading, critics say this approach only suppresses symptoms without killing the virus.

The concern is that this could lead to ‘silent epidemics’ where the virus spreads unnoticed.

But researchers led by Jeanet van der Goot of the Central Institute for Animal Disease Control in the Netherlands have now shown that two vaccines can completely stop transmission of the H7N7 bird flu virus in chickens.

H5 and H7 are distinct classes of bird flu viruses. The H5N1 strain has killed 68 people since 2003.

The team used the H7N7 virus because there was an outbreak of this strain in the Netherlands in 2003, when the study began.

However, “the principle is the same”, for other strains, says co-author Guus Koch.

Link to abstract of paper by van der Goot et al.

Reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi10.1073/pnas.0505098102 (2005)