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A solution any birdbrain should see:
as avian flu can spread unpredictably,
vaccination is the humane and intelligent option
Magnus Linklater
Columnist, The Times
Filed 22 Feb 06
©Magnus Linklater
This article, which
was originally published in The Times on 22nd February 2006,
is reproduced on Land-Care with the kind permission of
the author and the newspaper
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2051785,00.html
THE GOVERNMENT'S response to the threat of
bird flu in Britain is heart-sinkingly predictable. As soon as the
first infected creature is identified, there will be mass slaughter
around the site where it is found, and isolation of any threatened
premises. All birds within a fixed radius will be eliminated and
movement restricted. Vaccination has been all but ruled out - indeed
there has been no attempt even to order up the vaccines that other
countries, like the Netherlands, are using. If all this sounds depressingly
familiar it is. As last week's devastating report from the University
of Newcastle upon Tyne on the 2001 foot-and-mouth (FMD) outbreak
pointed out: "The UK's approach to combating animal disease
has remained broadly the same since the FMD crisis. Stamping out
is the basic philosophy, through the culling of infected animals
and those that may have been at risk of being exposed to the disease.
Vaccination remains a theoretical option."
That blinkered position was confirmed this week
by Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, who quoted, almost
word for word, the mantra we heard repeated so often five years
ago as the pits filled with burning carcases and the countryside
was emptied of people and prospects: "Everyone recognises that
vaccination has problems," she said. "(It) does not necessarily
stop the disease in its tracks."
Of course it does not. Very few inoculation programmes
do. But in the case of bird flu, most experts agree that the generic
vaccines currently available would offer about 80 per cent protection,
which would be of critical importance in containing the epidemic.
It would safeguard valuable poultry flocks, rather than killing
them; it would slow down the spread of the epidemic; it would hand
control to vets rather than government agencies; above all, it would
stand a chance of winning the support and confidence of the countryside
rather than ruining its economy, as happened last time, at an estimated
cost of some £8 billion.
There is one critical difference between avian
flu and FMD, which makes the case for vaccination compelling. Its
spread is entirely unpredictable. It can be brought in by a skein
of wintering geese, or be dropped from the air by a migrating flock
of eider duck; you can kill every hen on a farm and each feathered
thing within miles around, then discover it in a dying swan 100
miles away. Three-kilometre exclusion boundaries have very little
meaning for wildlife. As one ornithologist said yesterday: "We
did think of putting up a notice at the Slimbridge reserve, saying
No Fly Zone, but would the birds pay any attention?" Stopping
the movement of animals between farms, which was standard practice
during the FMD crisis, might make sense on paper, but it would be
irrelevant if this disease took hold during the coming migration
season, with flocks of web-footed birds and waders pouring in from
the Baltic.
That is why vaccination, used now, in advance
of an outbreak, would be not only the humane but the intelligent
option. Taking all flocks of chickens and hens inside - as some
of the big commercial farms are beginning to do - may be a sensible
option, but it is, inevitably, short term. Organic breeding centres,
which rely on having their animals outdoors, would lose their special
status. The task of policing thousands of domestic flocks up and
down the country would be well-nigh impossible. Defra, the department
responsible, is unlikely to be trusted if owners know that owning
up to having a few hens in the backyard means that they are likely
to be killed. If, however, a vaccination policy were introduced,
most farmers would willingly subscribe to it. They vaccinate farm
animals the whole time - it is part of their routine. As one veterinary
expert put it: "If Defra has time to rush around killing things,
then it has time to rush around vaccinating them instead."
No one is suggesting that there is any alternative to disposing
of a poultry flock once the infection has been detected within it.
But there must be a limit to the killing. Those who suffered the
trauma and the tragedy of the slaughter last time will simply not
tolerate the arbitrary 3km zones, the bungled science and the sheer
incompetence that accompanied it. Science this time is firmly on
the side of vaccination. Unlike FMD, the H5N1 virus is a potentially
lethal pathogen, not just for birds but for human beings. It could
yet mutate into a form that might be transmitted by people as well
as by the birds themselves. Vaccination would help to slow this
process down; it would reduce the rate at which a new virus was
produced, as well as the number of replications of the old one.
It is a means of keeping ahead of an epidemic rather than fighting
it on the back foot.
Defra opposes this because it argues that avian
flu might then become endemic in Britain, that its presence would
be "masked", not disposed of. But that is to misunderstand
the science, which now gives us the means of detecting the difference
between a vaccinated animal and an infected one, and would allow
us, once the disease has been contained, to breed it out.
Defra, as the Newcastle
University report pointed out, has a responsibility to look at the
overall impact of its policies on
rural communities, not just to fire-fight a disease once it has
taken hold. It should be a pioneer in animal science rather than
holding it back. It should be prepared to learn the lessons of the
past, not to ignore them. It should be on the side of life not death.
©Magnus Linklater
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