Discontent and finger pointing has been showing up in some of the translated articles out of Egypt about the poultry vaccine efficacy, quality, and proper administration, whether singly or a combination of the three factors. The al-Masry al-Youm article addresses the issue with a little more thoroughness.
By Metwalli Salem 8Jan08
Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Amin Abaza unveiled that his ministry would prepare a study to determine the types of serums and vaccines the companies import from outside and set new conditions on private companies importing anti-bird flu vaccines.
He said the most important of these conditions is that the companies must be registered in the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and that the vaccine must be effective against the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in Egypt.
Commenting on the paper's yesterday exclusive report about the doubts over the validity of vaccines imported by these companies, the minister told al-Masry al-Youm that it is a scientific fact that the vaccine is not 100% effective against the disease, as its efficiency ranges between 75% and 90%, and that the circulation of vaccine is as important as the type of vaccine used in immunization, indicating that the ineffectiveness of vaccines imported from abroad is not in the interest of companies importing the vaccines.
He noted that about more than one billion anti-bird flu doses have been imported either by the state or the private sector since February 17, 2006. "All of these doses have been tested in the ministry's Institute of Veterinary Vaccines," he added.
Abaza stressed that all the vital safety regulations would be strictly applied and stringently enforced through the control of veterinary services affiliated with the General Authority for Veterinary Services, indicating that the increased number of infections in recent weeks were mainly attributable to the fact that many poultry farms are lax in applying vital safety standards, making them believe that they have entirely brought the virus under control.
Abaza accused some owners of farms where bird flu infections are reported of selling the remaining stock in the other coops in several provinces, contributing to the spread of the virus to other areas instead of culling all birds in all the farm's coops. He maintained that this behavior is a crime against citizens and the State.
This is certainly not a new issue, and unfortunately, it continues to crop up. The following piece is from an offering from December 2005:
Source:
Europe Intelligence Wire
Publication Date: 09-DEC-05
(From Western Daily Press)
Widespread use of ineffective and fake animal vaccines may be greatly increasing the threat of a human flu pandemic, a leading expert said yesterday.
WIDESPREAD use of ineffective and fake animal vaccines may be greatly increasing the threat of a human flu pandemic, a leading expert said yesterday.
Many vaccines given to poultry in bird flu hot-spots such as south-east Asia fail to control the virus, said Dr Robert Webster, from the World Health Organisation. As a result, even in apparently healthy birds, the virus is allowed to spread and evolve into new forms.
[snip]
Dr Webster, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, said: "There are good vaccines and bad vaccines. Good vaccines reduce virus load; bad vaccines stop the signs of disease but the virus keeps replicating, spreading and evolving. The chickens look perfectly healthy but go on pumping out viruses for a long time.
"We have to ask the question, why are these animal influenza viruses showing so much antigenic drift? I would argue that contributing to this is the use of bad vaccines."
He said there was an urgent need for international standards to be applied to animal vaccines, as they are to those made for humans.
[snip]
Animal vaccines should also have minimum amounts of antigen, said Dr Webster. Poor quality veterinary vaccines are commonly used across the developing world, he said. Two major problem areas were China and Indonesia.
Government scientists in China produced some "excellent" high quality animal vaccines, said Dr Webster. But small regional factories were also making cheap, inferior vaccines that may contain no antigen at all. There was even one reported case of bottled water being sold as a vaccine.
Dr Webster pointed out that the problem was not new. An investigation into H5N1 outbreaks in Mexico in the 1990s found that only half the vaccines being given to poultry were effective.
Some things one just has to learn the hard way. It appears the poultry vaccine is one of those things.
SZ
