News

Iowa company develops avian flu vaccine

Iowa-based Harrisvaccines has developed a vaccine that could protect poultry from the H5N2 avian flu virus.

Joel Harris, head of sales and marketing, says they are currently testing the vaccine with the USDA and other agencies.

“We’ve also submitted documentation to get a conditional approval from the USDA,” Harris says. “So we’re kind of waiting for the go-ahead for vaccines to be approved in this outbreak.”

Harris says they are confident the vaccine will prove to be effective.  If it were to be approved, Harris says it would be most useful in operations that have experienced the virus and are ready to repopulate.

“In situations where whole buildings have been euthanized because they tested positive for H5 influenza and are about to be restocked or repopulated,” he says, “and so vaccinating those poults as they get repopulated into the buildings should have some benefit there.”

Harrisvaccines is one of several companies working on a vaccine for the H5N2 virus. But Joelle Hayden, a spokeswoman with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service tells Brownfield the agency has not yet decided if the use of avian flu vaccines will be approved.

AUDIO: Joel Harris