Many Vaccines Available, Needs Biosecurity To Be More Effective

Jakarta, Kompas – Currently there are 18 brands of vaccines in Indonesia, some of them imported from other countries. This could induce a pandemic because the vaccines given are not correct, thus not forming immunity.
Mangku Sitepu, an avian influenza critic, on Tuesday (7/1) in Jakarta, said “There are 18 brands of vaccine. Some use H5N2, H5N9, H5N1, and many more. This is not right, because if the vaccine does not match with the virus type, immunity will not happen.” Every country has their own strain of virus; therefore specific vaccines are needed for them. Many vaccines in Indonesia are imported from other countries, such as France, Mexico, and China. If the vaccines don’t match, infected chickens will still look healthy. The virus could mutate. “Virus from the chicken’s body will be excreted along with its feces and that could be transmitted to humans,” he said.

Chief Director of the National Committee on Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (Komnas FBPI), Bayu Krisnamurthi, on Wednesday (7/1) in Jakarta, gave out a similar statement.
He admitted that there are some challenges, that there are many types of vaccine and none have been acknowledged as most effective. “The vaccination system is still weak, in the distribution and also inadequate number of vaccinators,” he said.
Even though it isn’t quite effective, Mangku said, it doesn’t mean that we should stop vaccination, but we need to find out why.
He said that AI virus in poultry was first found in 1878 and started to infect humans in 1997 in Hongkong. In Indonesia, the virus was first found in 2005 and 21 months later it had already infected human. In Indonesia, the process of becoming a zoonoses is very quick.
”Biosecurity”
Vaccination and biosecurity are two sides of a coin. Vaccination will be effective if the “biological security” in form of security procedures to prevent introduction of virus sources and contact with infected birds go on well.
Thus was a statement from chairman of the Indonesia Poultry Veterinarian, who is also a pathology professor of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Gajah Mada University, Charles Rangga Tabbu, from Jogjakarta. Charles, who is also a member of the expert panel of Komnas FBPI, said that principally vaccination can not prevent infection because virus shedding will still occur.
”Therefore, vaccination must be supported with good biosecurity to counter the virus shedding,” said Charles.
Meanwhile, 50 farmers from the Sukabumi Native Chicken Farmer Group (Kepraks) have given up 10,000 doses of AI vaccine in response to the decision of the Indonesian Native Chicken Farmer Association (Himpuli) to stop AI vaccination.
The vaccines were given by chairman of Kepraks, Mahmud Daood, along with several of his members to Head of the Livestock Service Office of Sukabumi District, Asep Sugiyanto. The vaccines returned were Medivac H5N1 and H5N2. (EVY/MAS/AHA)
Source: Kompas