Print

Mail

wiki links

Council of Agriculture trumpets vaccine success

In a bid to better protect the nation’s NT$8 billion (US$240 million) annual poultry market, the Council of Agriculture yesterday touted its success in developing a vaccine to combat Riemerella anatipestifer (RA), a common and contagious disease that affects young waterfowl.

“Taiwanese consume about 38 million ducks and geese a year, however when RA hits young birds on a farm it kills 75 percent of them, causing a drastic financial blow to the livestock farmer,” Animal Health Research Institute Director Chao Parn-hwa (趙磐華) said.

Prior to the institute’s research, poultry farmers did not usually use vaccines to protect their assets from this disease, Chao said, adding that the increasing prevalence of the illness and the financial strain it can cause had prompted the institute to develop the vaccine.

When affected, a young bird develops symptoms such as ocular and nasal discharges, tremors of the head and neck, sepsis and a cheese-like excretion around the heart, Chao said.

Even if a duckling or young goose survives, its compromised immune system causes retarded growth, “which means that the bird is worthless on the market,” Chao said.

Three years ago, the institute began to isolate 21 serological types of the virus in the hope of developing a vaccine to combat the disease.

“With the help of several veterinary schools, we identified six of the most common serological types [types 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 and 11] and started work on making vaccines for them … Now, we have made vaccines for three of the most common viral types — types 1, 2 and 6 — and have tested it on a total of 5,000 waterfowl around the country,” Chao said.

Aiming for a 50 percent protection rate against mortality, the institute said that it had developed proven vaccines that work.

“The vaccines worked best in Peking Ducks [used mostly for roasting], but it also works well on Muscovy Ducks [eaten during winter with ginger and rice wine] and White Roman Geese,” Chao said.

Following their success, Chao said his team would apply for registrations for the new vaccines so that they could hopefully be on the market next year.

The institute is planning to work on vaccines for serological types 6, 8 and 11, as well as conducting technical transfers of the vaccines to privately owned pharmaceutical companies, he said.
This story has been viewed 1009 times.