Two vaccines tested in France against bird flu have proven “very effective” in protecting mule ducks, raised for foie gras, from the virus, the Anses health agency told AFP on Thursday, paving the way for a national vaccination. within a few months.
The “favorable results provide sufficient guarantees to launch a vaccination campaign starting in the fall of 2023,” the Ministry of Agriculture wrote on its website.
More than six million animals slaughtered this season
bird flu, reappeared early in the southwest in early MayIt continues to accelerate its progression with more than 50 outbreaks registered in duck and chicken farms, in particular in the Gers, we learned from concordant sources on Monday.
The repetition and scale of the crises linked to bird flu (more than 20 million birds slaughtered in 2021-2022 in France, and more than six million in 2022-23) have convinced European countries to come up with a vaccine strategy .
In France, an experiment was launched last year around two candidate waterfowl vaccines, developed by the Boehringer Ingelheim and Ceva Santé Animale laboratories.
Other vaccines tested in Europe
European neighbors are testing vaccines in other poultry species. The French experiment involved a few hundred ducks, vaccinated or not, and slaughtered at the end of the process. The virus currently circulating in France and around the world was inoculated into some of the previously vaccinated ducks to measure how much virus they excreted and whether they could still contaminate their conspecifics.
“Vaccination has allowed there to be very little excretion of the virus in the inoculated animals”, either through the respiratory or digestive routes”, summarized to AFP Béatrice Grasland, head of the ANSES national reference laboratory for avian Ploufragan-Plouzané-Niort. influenza The two vaccines, with “very similar” results, also “almost stopped direct transmission” and “abolished” indirect, airborne transmission.
“It is very effective”, summed up Béatrice Grasland, who highlighted a “very good level of protection” for vaccinated ducks “even in direct contact, in the same park, with the droppings” of infected ducks.
After a break of a month and a half, the virus has been spreading again since the beginning of May on dozens of farms in the southwest, in particular in the Gers. France plans to vaccinate primarily ducks (Mulard type but also Peking and Barbary, the latter raised more for its meat) due to its “particular role” in the dynamics of the epizootic.
Ducks are highly susceptible to the virus and shed it into the environment even before showing symptoms, contributing to the silent spread of bird flu.
Source: BFM TV
