Ei ole Suomi täysin kädetön lintuinfluenssan vastaisessa työssä:
Lintuinfluenssarokotusta tarjotaan nyt laajasti ja muun muassa lemmikkikanojen omistajille – lintujen kevätmuutto lisää tautiriskiäMaksutonta lintuinfluenssarokotetta tarjotaan nyt entistä useammalle henkilölle.
Mutta siinä turvataan pääosin ihmisiä.
Maailmalla huhutaan jo, että asiassa on ehkä ratkaisut keksitty. Myös kanoja varten:
Egg industry scrambling: Today’s Neros fiddle as the bird flu crisis deepens while politicians and ideologues ignore solutions to the crisisHere’s how genetic engineering can help
One brilliant and still unapplied approach to curbing HPAI was published in 2011. A joint effort between The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh and University of Cambridge created chickens that could become infected with HCAI, but could not transmit the virus. These birds were an epidemiological dead end, cutting off the possibility of passing along the deadly disease.
The technology is brilliant, but simple. The H5N1 virus genome encodes a three-subunit polymerase (the enzyme that synthesizes nucleic acids) that it uses to replicate its RNA genome. The polymerase initiates the process at a specific sequence in the viral RNA genome, binding this sequence prior to replication.
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Avian influenza vaccines
Just as humans are vaccinated against seasonal flu, vaccines have also been developed for poultry. Egypt, China, Mexico and France currently vaccinate poultry against avian influenza, and the vaccine has been conditionally approved for use in the U.S.. The vaccine, made by Zoetis, was originally approved in 2016, when a massive stockpile was assembled in the event of a major HPAI outbreak. The stockpile was de-piled in 2021.
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Opportunity lost
Because of a resistance to technology that permeates our highly-divided culture today, the current infectious strains are likely to become endemic, persisting in poultry, and spreading to livestock, domestic animals and humans. This translates to higher costs for consumers, challenges for poultry producers, and ultimately millions of dead birds. We may even see another pandemic, and loss of human life, particularly tracking science-denial demographics. But it didn’t have to be this way. Implementation of vaccination, used in concert with the genetically engineering approach from Roslin Institute, may have eradicated the disease from domestic flocks.
Instead, we’ll just endure another residue of the anti-biotech sentiment that metastasizes in the industrialized world. We had an opportunity to use technology to help farmers and consumers, and stem animal suffering. But we chose to let the disease run amok, sacrificed millions of birds that could have fed people, and increased the price of fundamental food staples.
