18 September 2023
By: Carien Kruger
For poultry farmers plunged into a crisis by highly contagious avian influenza, there is a glimmer of hope after the state provisionally approved vaccination against the disease under strict conditions.
Since April, at least 5 million chickens have been culled due to avian influenza, most of them commercial laying hens, says veterinarian Dr Shahn Bisschop, CEO of Avimune and a member of the South African Poultry Association avian influenza working group. This has led to empty egg shelves in stores in northern regions of the country.
The culling has also included at least 1.3-million broiler breeders. This will mean at least 6.5 million fewer day-old chicks a week for the broiler industry. The industry slaughters 22.5 million broiler chickens weekly and consumers may begin to experience a chicken shortage from mid to late October.
Chicken is the country’s most popular meat. According to the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy’s latest forecasting report, South Africans consumed an average of just over 35kg of chicken a year from 2020 to 2022, compared to about 12kg of beef.
In the northern provinces, where the H7N6 virus strain appears to be unstoppable, the industry is losing 65 000 chickens a day, and the epidemic does not yet seem to have peaked.
Bisschop says epidemics typically start slowly, spread faster, reach a peak and remain there for some time, then begin to decline. “The number of H7N6 infections is still on an upward trend. We have already lost 15-20% of the national flock, and there is a significant chance that we could lose much more,” he says.
“We do not have a vaccine yet and we are not sure how the virus is spreading. We can only hope the weather conditions change and that warmer weather and rain will soon bring an end to the crisis.”
Biosecurity and culling
The good news for poultry farmers and the chicken value chain is that the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development has made a U-turn and informed the industry last week that vaccination against avian influenza may take place.
Vaccination will not be mandatory but will create opportunities for farmers who want to vaccinate and see the potential to do so within certain limitations.
Producers who wish to vaccinate their chickens will need to pass an audit to confirm they meet the so-called VPN 44 export standards. This does not mean they intend to export; the standard is used because it exists and offers a straightforward way to determine if farmers’ biosecurity measures are adequate.
The second important condition is that producers may not sell culled chickens to the market for live poultry. This practice usually provides significant income for egg producers.
Further conditions are being worked on and should be finalised soon.
Waiting for the vaccine
The local company Deltamune will manufacture the vaccine for the H7N6 strain. Several approval processes are required before the vaccine will be commercially available and Bisschop says producers can expect to have it within eight to 12 weeks.
Outbreaks in the Western Cape earlier this year involved the H5N1 strain. Bishop says it is legally possible to import emergency vaccines if they are registered in Europe or the US. However, importation cannot happen overnight because approval processes are still required.
