International Experts Meet to Discuss AI Vaccine

Jakarta, 12 June 2007- Ministry of Agriculture- International experts are meeting in Jakarta this week to discuss Indonesia's vaccination strategy to control avian influenza in animals. The International AI Vaccination Seminar being held 11-12 June 2007 at the Gran Melia Hotel, aims to upgrade basic knowledge about the vaccination program implementation and to review current methods and recent experiences in the use of vaccination as one of the tools to control and prevent losses due to avian influenza. It will also be an opportunity to discuss the appropriate decision making process for the implementation of a vaccination strategy. The seminar is jointly organized by Directorate General of Livestock Services Ministry of Agriculture, the Forum of the Indonesian Poultry Society and the United States of Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) or Avian Influenza (AI) in Indonesia started in mid 2003. The disease was first found in two provinces, Central Java and Banten, which then spread rapidly to other areas in Indonesia. In early 2004 the Indonesian Government decided to carry out mass vaccination for sector 4 (backyard) as an attempt to control the disease, considering Java is the central of poultry population (60%) and stamping out the poultry population was impossible because AI had spread to the whole provinces in Java by early 2004. The vaccine thatw as used was local produced vaccine using local seed virus of H5N1 subtype.

The main purpose of the vaccination is to increase the poultry immunity, to protect the poultry from AI clinical signs, to prevent and curb poultry mortality, and to restrain the virus shedding in the environment. Nevertheless mass vaccination is not the only tool to control AI because must go together with the improvement of bio-security, depopulation, surveillance, movement control on poultry trek, poultry products and others etc.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and Office International des Epizooties (OIE) recommendation, vaccination against HPAI should be conducted using the seed vaccine produced from low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) virus. Based on the recommendation and supported by limited researches, the Indonesian Government has decided to change its’ vaccination policy by using vaccine produced from LPAI virus. However, the government will keep monitoring and evaluating the use of the vaccines.

Initially, the OIE does not recommend vaccination as a tool to control and eradicate HPAI. But in the progress, OIE/FAO/WHO finally recommended that following specific requirements, vaccination is a tool to control and eradicate HPAI. The International Conference on AI Vaccination in Verona, Italy in March 2007 recommended that poultry vaccination combined with other control measures is the important tool to fight H5N1 virus. The Conference also recommended that in endemic countries where other control measures can not be optimally implemented, poultry vaccination is an exact device to control HPAI as long as using the complied OIE standard AI vaccine  and sufficient infrastructure is available to guarantee a fast and safe vaccine delivery.

During the implementation of mass vaccination in Indonesia, the vaccination on backyard poultry didn’t work as it was planned due to the problems of vaccine limited number, equipments and facilities, vaccinator and operational budget. Therefore since 2006, vaccination has only been implemented in 11 high risk provinces (targeted vaccination) i.e. the whole provinces in Java, Lampung, North Sumatera, West Sumatera, Bali and South Sulawesi).

Directorate General of Livestock Services
Ministry of Agriculture