Officials depart from the standard practice to destroy all birds on a farm when an infection is recognized.
Minneapolis – With increasing egg prices, the Trump administration plans a new strategy to combat bird flu that emphasizes vaccinations and a closer bios safety instead of killing millions of chickens when the disease hits a herd.
The Federal Government will search for “better ways with biosecurity and medication, etc.” than the current standard practice to destroy all birds on a farm when an infection is found, said Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, on Sunday on the CBS – Program “Missing the nation”.
Hasset said the government intended to announce further details this week. He said they “worked with the best people in the government, including academics all over the country and all over the world” to prepare the plan.
Spokesman for the US Agriculture Ministry did not respond immediately to messages on Tuesday to obtain further information.
Usually, when chickens or turkey dies from the disease, the officials will “destroy all birds on the farm to prevent them from spreading.
However, the resulting equipment of millions of chickens per month has led to the prices for eggs to be raised, with the bottlenecks causing some retailers to turn the rationing. The average price of eggs in US cities in US cities reached 4.95 US dollars in January, and the USDA predicts that it will increase by a further 20% this year.
Hassett didn't have many details about how the new approach of the Trump government would work. But he said it would include a “better, more intelligent scope” in poultry farms. He said it made no sense to kill all chickens to this extent when the disease is distributed by wild ducks and geese.
The agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins said to “Fox and Friends” that after he was sworn in, her first briefing was on bird flu.
“We consider every possible scenario to ensure that we do everything we can can safely and safely, but also make sure that the Americans have the food they need,” Rollins told Fox News.
Due to the potential effects on the export markets and the costs, the poultry industry has long opposed the vaccination against bird flu. Most US trading partners accept exports from countries that do not allow vaccinations due to concerns due to concerns that vaccines can mask the presence of the virus.
“We support the administration and their goals of reducing the inflation of food and reducing the regulatory bureaucracy and hopefully eliminating this virus in an interview that producers need robust trade protection to ensure that they do not lose markets.
The executives of the Congress chicken said last week in a letter to Rollin that the egg industry had lost most birds, but the Broiler industries could bear a disproportionate share of the costs of a change in politics. According to the USDA, 77.5% of the almost 159 million commercial birds who have lost against Vogelinfluenza since February 2022 were layers or over 123 million. This corresponds to 13.7 million broilers or 8.6%and 18.7 million turkey or 11.8%.
Vogel -Influenza vaccines have long been available. The Animal Health Company Zoetis announced on Friday that it received a conditional license from the USDA for a new vaccine. However, it would stop in cooperation with the industry with the federal authorities, the company said in a statement. Other manufacturers also work on it.
Dr. Carol Cardona, an expert in bird flu at the University of Minnesota, said a closer biosproofness to prevent cross -contamination and limit the outbreaks to a barn “requires an incredible amount of work on the ground,” she said.
“I saw that it works,” said Cardona in an interview. “I saw that in other cases it failed dramatically.”
In order for the “precision gee period” to work, we have to give effective obstacles for the transfer between barns, e.g. B. to ensure abnormal deaths, she added.
Another barrier is the logistical difficulty to give up to 3 million birds on a single egg farm. Current vaccines are all injections. Farms could choose to limit them to new pulets that come to a farm, she said.
Vaccines that could be administered economically through the water supply of a farm would require new innovations, said Cardona. But until there is a market for vaccines, she said that there is no incentive to develop it.
“Today's technology shouldn't be long, but we are there,” said Cardona.