October 27, 2005

USDA has no plans to vaccinate poultry against bird flu
 

The USDA has a stockpile of poultry vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu, but has no plans now to use it because of the cost to industry and the drug's interference in testing for the disease, a USDA official said Wednesday.

Ron DeHaven, administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said, "We have at any given time a billion (commercial birds) on the ground ... so it would be extremely expensive (to vaccinate them)."

While the discovery of bird flu is a routine occurrence in the US, the deadly H5N1 strain that can kill humans has never been found here.

DeHaven stressed that if the US were to vaccinate its poultry against the H5N1 bird flu, surveillance through testing would no longer be effective. About 1 million birds in commercial poultry flocks are tested each year to detect for any form of bird flu.

And that testing, DeHaven said, is what USDA uses to show foreign importers that US poultry is safe and healthy.