AIPBA urges govt to permit manufacturing, vaccination of LPAI H9N2 disease in poultry birds

All India Poultry Breeders Association AIPBA has demanded that the government should allow manufacturing and vaccination of Low Pathogen Avian Influenza Disease LPAI H9N2, saying farmers and industry suffer huge losses every year due to the spread of viral infection in poultry birds.The association has written a letter to Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry Dairying Parshottam Rupala.Poultry Industry has been suffering from a very long time with no regulations and policy around vaccination.

All India Poultry Breeders Association (AIPBA) has demanded that the government should allow manufacturing and vaccination of Low Pathogen Avian Influenza Disease (LPAI H9N2), saying farmers and industry suffer huge losses every year due to the spread of viral infection in poultry birds.

The association has written a letter to the Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying Parshottam Rupala.

''Poultry Industry has been suffering for a very long time with no regulations and policies around vaccination. Also, the current scenario restricts the manufacturing of LPAI H9N2 vaccine India for the livestock poultry industry,'' said Bahadur Ali, the Chairman of All India Poultry Breeders Association.

He mentioned that the poultry industry consisting of lakhs of farmers suffers huge economic losses due to various diseases caused because of viral infection spread into poultry livestock.

''LPAI causes comorbidity in poultry flocks throughout the year, thereby causing huge economic losses to poultry farmers. It is not a notifiable disease as per OIE. Therefore, the occurrence of this disease does not in any way impact any international trade transactions related to poultry exports of any country,'' Ali said.

Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza (LPAI) Strain H9N2 was first observed in India in 2003 has since then been prevalent, the letter said. ''It could be right to say that LPAI seems to be endemic in many parts of India and is observed throughout the year.'' The association has pitched for a suitable vaccination policy to protect the birds and avoid antigenic drift in the virus with proper surveillance and control.

''A suitable vaccine may be developed by the vaccine manufacturing companies, using a locally isolated strain of H9N2. The strain could be isolated and supplied by GoI (Government of India) through IVRI (Indian Veterinary Research Institute),'' Ali said.

Vaccine seed and production standards could be set by IVRI as per the guidelines of OIR, which is the World Organisation for Animal Health, he added.