January 2, 2009

Taiwan announces breakthrough in poultry vaccine development

The National Science Council (NSC) announced on Wednesday (Dec 31) that Taiwan researchers have made an initial breakthrough in the development of a vaccine against major infectious poultry diseases.

The successful construction of a recombinant fowlpox virus would be used as a vector to help develop the three-in-one poultry vaccine.

National Chung Hsing University's Department of Veterinary Medicine Professor Lee Lung-hu predicted that combination vaccines for poultry would become the trend as too many different kinds of vaccines can adversely affect the health of fowl.

Lee said diseases like bird flu, fowlpox, Newcastle disease and infectious bursal disease can all seriously hurt poultry farm business.

He also said if the development and mass production of the three-in-one vaccine was successful, it would help chicken farmers save costs.

The research uses gene engineering techniques, and the fowlpox virus was used as a vector to develop a vaccine against bursal disease.

He added that the next step will be to test the vaccine at chicken farms.