A mass vaccination campaign for poultry against avian influenza that's reportedly being considered by the Biden administration could hurt chicken farmers by making it harder for them to export birds.
Several vaccines against different strains of bird flu have been developed and administered to poultry in other countries, including China, but the United States has never carried out mass bird flu vaccination. Mass vaccination could cause problems exporting poultry products because trading partners may object that it is difficult to prove poultry is not infected with the virus.
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"The concern is if you start to vaccinate, you can actually maybe protect the birds from getting sick or dying, but the virus may still be able to transmit within that flock, so now, it becomes much harder to know that if you have the virus or not," said Dr. Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. "From an importing country's perspective, that's what the theoretical concern is — that when you start to implement vaccination, it becomes much harder to know if you're actually free from the disease."
Officials at the Department of Agriculture are reportedly exploring possible poultry vaccines that could protect against the virus that causes bird flu, known as H5N1, amid an outbreak of bird flu that has killed tens of millions of chickens in the U.S., according to the New York Times.
The recent spread of bird flu to wild birds and other mammals is one reason why U.S. officials may be considering vaccinating poultry despite trade concerns. No such vaccine has been authorized for poultry.
"The idea being, if you can vaccinate poultry, you're reducing the amount of virus that's out there, reducing the exposure of people to infected birds, so reducing the chances that this virus may actually make that leap from birds to humans," Webby said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it believes that the risk of bird flu to human public health is low at this point but has urged heightened safety procedures, particularly for workers in the poultry industry who may be dealing with infected birds.
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Cases of bird flu have been tracked for decades, but the H5N1 strain spurred a global outbreak beginning in 2020. The outbreak has spread through migratory birds to Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. More than 58 million poultry and 6,000 wild birds in the U.S. have been infected with bird flu, according to the CDC.
While only a few isolated cases of bird flu have been reported in humans so far, the World Health Organization has warned health officials to expect more human cases because the disease has recently crossed into small mammals, including minks, otters, foxes, and sea lions.