Netherlands: Bird flu vaccine for laying hens proves effective in practice

Bird flu vaccines for laying hens are effective in practice, the Dutch government said on Tuesday, while confirming plans to vaccinate poultry against the virus that has ravaged flocks around the world and is raising fears about human transmission. Highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has killed or caused the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry globally in the past few years, most of them laying hens, which sent egg prices rocketing. Research in the laboratory of Wageningen Bioveterinary Research early last year had already shown that two vaccines against bird flu, produced by France’s Ceva Animal Health and Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim, were effective against the virus, but no experiments were conducted on a farm. “In September 2023, 1,800 day-old chicks were vaccinated against bird flu. The results show that the two tested vaccines are effective against infection with the virus eight weeks after vaccination,” the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, ...