Home
News
New in-ovo vaccine for IBV
UK scientists are developing a new way to vaccinate
chicks against infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), which causes losses of £23.6M
a year to the UK poultry industry.
The
Institute for
Animal Health (IAH) and vaccine company
Intervet are developing a vaccine that can be delivered to the
birds while they are still in their egg using robotic 'vaccinators'.
The pre-hatching prototype vaccine virus provides immunity to IBV - the
worst infectious disease in terms of economic loss to the UK poultry industry.
Infection can lead to severe respiratory disease, dramatically reduce egg
production and affect the quality and hatchability of eggs.
The scientists have extracted a so-called spike protein from a pathogenic
virus strain which triggers an immune response, and incorporated it into a
harmless non-pathogenic strain.
Dr Paul Britton, Head of the Coronavirus Group at
IAH Compton, explained,
"This hybrid virus was able to induce immunity when inoculated before hatching.
When hatched chicks were exposed to the virulent M41 strain, we observed
protection rates of up to 100 percent."
Editor WorldPoultry
To comment, login here
Or register to be able to comment.