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UK govt urged to fight bird flu
21/03/2006 20:16 - (SA)
London - Britain's organic farmers urged the government on Tuesday to prepare stocks of vaccines to protect free-range chickens from bird flu, saying no one could stomach the mass culls seen during the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
They praised the government for showing "more flexibility" about using vaccination for controlling any outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus than it did in 2001 against foot and mouth, but said an expanded vaccination policy should be launched now.
A spokesperson for an organic campaign group, Soil Association, said: "There is nothing left in the kill, kill, kill armory used to fight foot-and-mouth."
Producers to lose free-range status
The spokesperson said: "Government has already got some vaccine stockpiled mainly for exotic birds and those in zoos. That should be extended."
Organic poultry farmers said vaccination was the only way to protect their growing market, where production had increased by 35% during the past year.
By bringing poultry indoors for more than three months to escape infection, producers would lose their free-range status.
Patrick Holden of the association said: "Securing the long-term future of sustainable, welfare-friendly systems is essential if we are to build up over the longer-term livestock, which are...resistant to the seemingly endless cycle of diseases that challenge our farming industry."
Bird flu killed over 90 people
The Netherlands, France and Russia had launched vaccination drives to fight bird flu, which had spread from Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. It had killed more than 90 people and millions of birds.
But, many Dutch farmers had chosen to wait, fearful that vaccinated poultry might turn off consumers, and in France the programme had been limited to a southwest region and to geese and ducks. Russia was vaccinating domestic fowl.
Britain's government had said it would keep an open mind on using vaccination - which some said would reduce the spread of the H5N1 virus if it hit Britain - but officials and advisers said as yet there was no vaccination that was efficient.
Emergency vaccination 'under consideration'
They said vaccination would take too long to administer and could spread the disease by masking its symptoms.
A spokesperson for the UK department for environment, food and rural affairs said: "Our position hasn't changed. We are keeping emergency vaccination under consideration."
The government's chief scientific adviser, David King, said for the time being his advice would also be to hold off.
He said: "My advice is...not to use the current vaccine except to protect zoo birds that are caged and maintained in such a way that they can be carefully observed.
"If you use the current vaccine, you are faced with one which has not got a high efficiency of operation. It is highly likely that vaccinated birds would become ill and would shed the virus so that they can spread the virus to other birds."
- Reuters
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