Avian Influenza surveillance in the Netherlands

1
Avian Influenza surveillance in the Netherlands

• ASEM Workshop on
• AI control
• Beijing 12-14 November 2007
• by Frits Pluimers DVM
• former CVO

2
Avian Influenza outbreak in 2003 in the
Netherlands

• HPAI strain H7N7
• February 28 until May 7 2003
• 30 million birds culled
• 258 infected farms
• 1,086 farms culled pre-emptively
• 16,500 back yard flocks
• Costs
• Government 270 million
• Losses of industry 500 million
• Result HPAI eradicated

3
AI Surveillance and Monitoring

• Surveillance of poultry
• Periodical serological testing (obligatory)
• Periodical serological testing (voluntary)
• Early warning system
• Monitoring poultry diseases (voluntary)
• Monitoring of wild birds
• PCR testing of live wild birds
• PCR testing of dead wild birds

4
Serological Surveillance in poultry (obligatory
program)

• 10 blood samples
• Every commercial poultry farm 1 time/year
• Farms with free range poultry 4 times/year
• Turkey farms every flock
• Tests Elisa, AGPT or HI
• Total number samples 40,000 (2006)

5
Serological Surveillance in poultry (voluntary
program)

• 30 blood samples
• Grand parent and parent farms for layers and
  broilers about every month
• 120,000 samples per year (2006)

6
Early warning poultry farms

• Obligatory notification clinical symptoms AI
• Obligatory notification atypical symptoms
• Death rate gt 0.5 per day for 2 consecutive days
• gt5 decrease in water and/or feed intake for 2
  consecutive days
• gt5 decrease in egg production for 2 consecutive
  days
• When clinical symptoms inconclusive for AI
• Voluntary PCR testing of tracheal swabs

7
Results of Surveillance and Early Warning

• In 2006
• LPAI virus detected in 1 farm
• Farm culled, farmer compensated
• 3 km surveillance zone
• No infection detected in surveillance zone
• In 2007
• No infection with LPAI or HPAI detected

8
Monitoring poultry diseases(voluntary)

• Agreement between Animal Health Service AHS and
  28 specialised veterinary poultry practitioners
• Covers 60 of commercial poultry farms
• Participating farms distributed over whole
  country
• All clinical and production data in data base of
  AHS
• The system generates signals for early detection
  of economically important diseases like AI, NCD,
  Fowl cholera, etc.

9
AI Monitoring Wild Birdsin 2006

• Catched live birds tested by PCR
• 16,500 samples mainly of water fowl (ducks,
  geese, swans etc.)
• 46 positive for H5
• 7 positive for H7
• All were LPAI
• Dead wild birds tested by PCR
• 6,400 samples
• 6 positive, all LPAI

10
Costs of Surveillance and Monitoring in 2006

• Obligatory surveillance poultry farms
• 120,000
• Voluntary surveillance poultry farms
• 360,000
• Monitoring live wild birds
• 125,000
• Monitoring dead wild birds (logistics, post
  mortem and testing)
• 700,000
• Costs for surveillance are paid by farmers, costs
  of monitoring are paid by government

11
Conclusions

• Surveillance and monitoring produce data about
• the AI status of the poultry population both for
  LPAI and HPAI
• the presence of AI strains and tendencies in
  infection rate and strain types in wild birds
• the absence of AI in live poultry for export
  certification
• Early warning helps to detect AI infections in an
  early stage and therefore to minimise the size of
  outbreaks