Last week at a congressional hearing, U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the U.S. is "probably 18 months or so" away from identifying a vaccine for the current strain of bird flu (H5N1) that has killed nearly 82 million birds since January 2022.
While the USDA is getting closer to a potential vaccine, the agency is “nowhere near” ready to address the questions and guidelines around distribution rollout and potential trade complications, Vilsack told Congress.
“We would have a circumstance where if we vaccinated today, I think we would have a number of our trading partners saying we’re not interested in your chickens,” he said.
The World Organization for Animal Health has encouraged countries to identifying a vaccine, saying that it should not become "an unneccesary barrier to safe trade." Yet, the U.S. government said last year that France's decision to vaccinate ducks against H5N1 will create restrictions on imports of French poultry products. The vaccine limits the spread of avian influenza, but does not entirely protect birds.
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