Final phase of avian influenza vaccination in Jalisco, Mexico

The poultry sector of Jalisco, Mexico, is completing the final phase of vaccination in farms against avian influenza, Héctor Gutiérrez, the head of the Department of Rural Development of Jalisco, said. After the vaccination phase is completed, Jalisco will enter into the elimination stage of vaccines until the absence of the H7N3 virus is confirmed.
"This period of cold temperatures of fall and winter will be a season of great importance to strengthen biosecurity in the poultry sector," Gutiérrez told the newspaper El Informador.
The National Health, Food Safety and Quality Service (Senasica) "will assess progress towards the eradication of this avian pathology, as well as the certification of farms."
The director of Animal Health of Senasica, Joaquín Delgadillo, said that "there is an agreement in force to maintain vaccination in farms until mid-March 2015, when an assessment of this will be made to take further steps." Vaccination is a tool that complements with other health practices, such as perimeter fencing, access filters to farms and traps against the migrating birds and management of excreta. Thus, there is a whole biosecurity program in place to combat highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Two years after the battle against avian influenza started, a total of 700 million doses of vaccines have been applied in Mexican poultry farms, Delgadillo said to El Informador. In addition, "there is a permanent monitoring of sites where migratory birds gather, such as some wetlands that have been located in the national territory."
The state of Jalisco in Mexico provides 55 percent of egg production that is consumed in the country and 8 percent of the broiler production.