avipro news issue 6

I s s u e s i x S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 7

DEAR AVIAN PROFESSIONALS,

NEWS

On 1 August, 131 persons gathered in Winslow Maine at the Loh-mann Animal Health International avian vaccine laboratory to celebrate the firm’s50th anniversary andthe recent expansionof its facilities. Thepurpose of this ex-pansion is to allowcontinued produc-tion of vaccines, pre-viously made at theVineland New Jerseysite, with spare stor-age capabilities tomeet increasing mar-ket demand.

Welcome to another exciting issue of AviPro® News. The sixth issue is inaugurated by an article on the grand opening at our American site in Winslow, Maine. Next to the 50th anniversary of the company, the recent expansion of the facilities gave reason to celebrate (read more on pages 1 and 2).I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate everybody who helped in organising this successful event.

Amongst others the newsletter contains information on our mild Gumboro vaccine AviPro® VIBURSA L, a new vaccination control tool, the presentation

of two new posters that are available from now on with our customer service as well as a question and answer session on REO virus with our senior veterinarian Dr Thijs van Dijk.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue!

Yours sincerely,

Anna-Christina RiebauProduct Manager Technical Marketing Poultry Vaccines, Lohmann Animal Health GmbH & Co. KG

CONTENTSEvents/visits2 Lohmann live vaccines in New

Zealand

3 Wolves on poultry vaccines

3 4th traditional LAH broiler breeder dinner

4 Seminar follows Salmonella scare

in Jordan

4 Marketing conference at Golden Harvest

Products5 Ask us! REO virus

5 Improvement of vaccination control

6 Protection of naive chicks with

AviPro® VIBURSA L

Avian Professionals7 Susanne Parr

7 Katrina Bragg

7 Thanakrid Luupanyalerd

What’s new?7 New Wild Turkey and Guinea Fowl

Poster

8 LAH enlarges its range of non-English

brochures

8 Contemporary art series continued

50TH ANNIVERSARYAND EXPANSION OFFACILITIES IN MAINE

Markus Wesjohann officially opening the

expansion buildings by cutting the red ribbon.

50TH ANNIVERSARY AND EXPANSION OF FACILITIES IN MAINEThree new production laboratories, expanded freeze-drying capa-bility and doubling of bacterial antigen production will boost pro-duction capacity. A new 10,000-square-foot label/package/shipcentre with refrigeration will allow rapid fulfilment of speciallylabelled avian vaccine orders to 45 international sites.

The new three-chamber hepa-filtered animal testing house, withmultiple isolators in each chamber plus two large pen-type houses, have boosted the company’s live bird testing capacity.

Guests from North, South and Central America plus Europe attend-ed the event. Speeches, lunch and tours of the new laboratorieshighlighted the celebration.

Keynote speakers included Dr TravisCigainero, Head of Health for Pilgrim’sPride Company, the world’s largestbroiler production company, who con-gratulated the company on its “poultryvaccines only” decision and stressedthe importance of reliable and availablevaccines for his firm’s success. And, he

indicated that investment in R&D is required to continue to meetthe needs of industry.

Mr Doug Metzger, Site Manager for Hyline International, the lead-ing US table egg-layer breeder company, stressed the need forvaccine companies to remain tuned into the practical needs of thecustomer, as LAHI develops new vaccines.

Dr Kenneth Eskelund, founder of the USA firm, was in attendanceand honoured at the event.

As a pre-event of the grand opening celebration, LAHI held atechnical training session for its sales and technical supportstaff from Germany and the USA. The meeting was opened bytwo guest speakers Dr Charles Hofacre, who gave the group aninsight on immunosuppressive disease and Dr Daral Jackwood,who spoke about molecular identification of IBD.Next to this, several further topics like the field use of AviPro®

VIBURSA CE, IBD progeny challenges, the runting-stunting syn-drome and the water stabiliser AviBlue were discussed, support-ed by presentations from Dr Beatriz Cardoso, Dr Mariano Salem,Dr Iván Alvarado and Dr Michael Iburg (all LAH or LAHI TechnicalSupport).

Stock and supply of Lohmann’shighly sophisticated products,

among them, our live vaccines againstSalmonella Typhimurium, Gumboro, Ma-rek’s disease and Chicken Anaemia is oneof the roles of Pacificvet. An independentoperator, Pacificvet was established in 1993by Bruce Graham and Kent Deitemeyer,who have since become the market lead-ers in supply of vaccines and veterinaryimmunology products for the poultry in-dustry in New Zealand and through thePacific Islands.

The company has been working with someclients in one guise or another for up to 30

years. This all happens from a modestbase in Christchurch, with just six otherstaff besides themselves.

With the help of veterinarian and generalmanager Julie Wagner, Pacificvet has alsoembarked on an outreach education pro-gramme designed to update the veterinarycommunity and other client groups onprinciples of applied veterinary immunologyand on the contribution of the poultry in-dustry towards food safety, especiallywhere Salmonella control is concerned.

Pacificvet's future growth continues to liein prevention, not cure, and the focus stayson primary sector clients and updatingtheir product range with new productsaimed at preventive vet care.

LOHMANN LIVE VACCINES IN NEW ZEALAND

Events/visits

NEWSpage 2 issue six

Dr Travis Cigainero.

The Pacificvet team.

Attendees of the technical meeting in front of Kennebec Hall.

chicken

In order to catch up with Euro-pean Union requirements for

Salmonella control, Portuguese poultryproducers have embraced AviPro® SAL-MONELLA VAC E and T as part of theirprogrammes. Keeping up with the demand,Lohmann has concluded an agreementtherefore with a new distributor, TLH, anew enterprise which will distribute theAviPro® range of poultry vaccines in Portu-gal with the help of two “lobos” (wolves):General Manager Luis Costa (left), whohas been with LAH poultry vaccines forfive years; and newly appointed veteri-narian Luis Piçarra (right), as TechnicalDirector. The “lobos” nickname comes fromthe fact that both are rugby players, havingplayed for the Portuguese national team,known also as the “Wolves”. Costa has re-

tired from the sport, and Piçarra is current-ly the vice-captain of the brave squadronwhich, for the first time, represents the

country at the Rugby World Cup finals(France, September 2007). We will be cheer-ing for them on both endeavours!

Events/visits

24 and 25 May, Lohmann Ani-mal Health organised, for the 4th

time, its breeder dinner and clay-pigeonshoot in Shropshire, central England.Matthias Mangels, LAH, opened the tra-ditional dinner with a welcome speechto the highly interested audience, whichrepresented approximately 80% of theUK broiler breeder industry.

The dinner was followed, on the next day,by a perfectly organised clay-pigeonshooting competition, which was only dis-turbed by the arrival of our UK agentfor Lohmann vaccines, David Hodson,arousing the crowd as he drove in his vin-tage 1934 Alvis two-seater.

For those petrol-heads (“car enthusiasts”)the model is a 12/70 special with a 2.0-litre engine.

Events/visits

WOLVES ON POULTRY VACCINES


Matthew Ward, Steve Carlyle, David Hodson, Chris Durrant, Joe Lawson, Rob Harrison,

Matthias Mangels, Daniel Dring, and Lindsay Broadbent (left to right).

General Manager Luis Costa and veterinarian Luis Piçarra.

4TH TRADITIONAL LAH BROILER BREEDER DINNER

Following alarm caused by anoutbreak of salmonella poison-

ing in Jordan, involving 300 people, theJordanian Ministries of Agriculture andHealth quickly organised a seminar inAmman for table-egg and broiler pro-ducers. The outbreak was put down toSalmonella Enteritidis following the con-sumption of home-made mayonnaise fromlocal fast-food outlets.Jordanian Minister of Agriculture, MrMustafa Gronfulla, who opened the event,emphasised the importance of measuresneeded to control Salmonella.

The main speaker was Dr Ioannis Mavro-matis, Lohmann Animal Health’s AreaSales Manager for the Middle East, whooutlined the role of vaccination and drewattention to the control of salmonella inthe UK, through the Lion Egg scheme, and

in Cyprus. Both countries used AviPro®

SALMONELLA VAC E and T and success-fully achieved low and zero levels ofsalmonella in their layer flocks. He pointed out that a simple test – theAviPro® PLATE test – could distinguishbetween vaccine and field strains ofSalmonella, so did not interfere with moni-toring programmes.

Such was the importance attached to thisevent, in addition to major poultry integra-tors, it was attended by ten veterinariansinvolved in zoonosis and veterinary ser-vices from the Ministry of Agriculture,Professor Kalel Shawbka from the Uni-versity of Jordan and Dr Mohamed AlNator from Jordan University of Scienceand Technology, as well as vets and advisers from the private sector.

SEMINAR FOLLOWS SALMONELLA SCARE IN JORDAN

Events/visits

Golden Harvest, LAH’s distribu-tor in Pakistan, held its 4th an-

nual marketing conference from 25 to 27July 2007 in Karachi. The conference wasattended by 12 people including the Gold-en Harvest sales team and local distribu-tors. Outstanding performances from thelast year were rewarded and objectivesand strategies for the next year were dis-cussed. The Target Achievement Awardswere given to the following distributors:Mr Taufiq Ahmed (sitting, 2nd from left), MrMoazzam Farooq (sitting, 2nd from right)and Dr Hasan Javed (sitting, 3rd fromright). Also, Mr Ijaz Anwer (standing, 2ndfrom left) from the sales team receivedthe award. Next to that, technical presen-tations on the positioning of LAH’s IBDvaccines and different vaccination tech-niques were given to the intrigued audience.

Events/visits

MARKETING CONFERENCE 2007 AT GOLDEN HARVEST


The identification of AviPro Salmonella

vaccine strains and their discrimination from

Salmonella field isolates is reliably done by

using the AviPro® PLATE format.

1. Why do we use live vaccines forREO virus? Are they used just asa primer or do they protect vacci-nated birds against symptoms?Live REO vaccines can induce pro-tection against symptoms in youngbirds, but only when there are nomaternally derived antibodies (MDA)present to neutralise the vaccine.They will not be effective in youngbirds with MDA against REO. EarlyREO infections are the most dan-gerous ones. The most effective

protection against them is by inducing high levels of antibodiesin the parent stock to protect the offspring by MDA. High antigencontent inactivated REO vaccines are the most effective, in-ducing high titres in parent stock.Priming such parent flocks with a live REO vaccine will furtherincrease the effect of the inactivated REO vaccine. Individual andaverage titres are higher and more uniform. Most importantly, thepercentage of breeder birds that has low or zero titres diminishes.This live priming of the young breeder birds can be done whenMDA have waned (after approximately 6 weeks of age).

2. Malabsorption syndrome (MAS) is still a current problem in broiler flocks worldwide. Can it be minimised by REO virusvaccination of parent stock?MAS is a complex of symptoms occurring when the intestines ofthe broiler are not able to absorb sufficient nutrients, resulting indeficiencies and growth retardation. Certain REO strains causeMAS-like symptoms. This does not mean that all MAS is causedby REO infections: any pathogen that disturbs the optimal balancein the intestinal flora can cause symptoms of MAS.In cases of MAS caused by REO infections, REO vaccination ofthe parent stock is the most effective way of prevention.

3. Are different strains of REO virus responsible for differentsymptoms or syndromes on the infected birds? Why do someinactivated vaccines contain different REO virus strains?REO virus isolates have been associated with a great variety of

symptoms. This has enabled the categorisation of REO-relatedinfections into different syndromes, such as viral arthritis (VA),brittle bone syndrome, MAS, runting-stunting syndrome and heli-copter disease. The S1133 (LvdHeijden) strain is reported to beisolated from a case of VA, while the 1733 strain from a case ofclassic MAS, and the 3005 from a case of brittle bone.However, a REO isolate from one specific syndrome will notnecessarily always cause similar symptoms. Neither is it possibleto differentiate various isolates by current serological methods:the REO antibodies do not make a distinction. In fact, the immunesystem does not distinguish between the one and the otherpathotype: antibodies induced by one isolate will protect equallyagainst the other pathotypes. Inclusion of isolates of two or more syndromes in a vaccine doesnot give a broader protection. Moreover, it would be unpracticalto include isolates of all syndromes associated with REO virusinfections. However, including more antigen per dose can increase theimmune response, measured in titres. A higher titre sometimescan induce a more effective protection, which in itself could inducea higher titre and a better protection.

4. What is the best possible method to monitor REO vaccinat-ion? Serology on parent stock or serology on day-old chicks?There is a direct link between the antibody titres in the breedersand the protection in the offspring, as well as between the breedertitres and the breeder vaccination programme. Monitoring thebreeder titres gives the most direct link to a successful vaccinat-ion. However, the broiler people may not have access to thebreeder serological results. Testing the day-old chicks does givethem derivative information on vaccination status of the breeders.Although the MDA titres in the offspring are directly related to thetitres in the parents, there are several factors that can cause addit-ional variation in the titres measured in the offspring, such as theage at moment of testing, the status of resorption of the yolk sac,and the quality of the hatch. Therefore, serology on the day-oldchicks is more directly linked to the protective status of the chicks themselves, which is reflected by other factors than vacci-nation of the breeders alone.

Products

REO VIRUS


Dr Thijs van Dijk.

Ask us!

Products

For the last three decades, the number of human cases of salmon-ellosis in Europe have steadily increased. In consequence,health and agricultural authorities publicly recognised SalmonellaEnteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium as major pathogens offood-producing animals. In some countries of the EU, vaccination

against salmonella became mandatory as part of the strategy to fight salmonellae in poultry. The strategy of LAH focused on combining the increased efficacy of live vaccines and the ease of use afforded in mass medication, without jeopardising safety, of particular importance when dealing with zoonotic agents.

IMPROVEMENT OF VACCINATION CONTROL

PROTECTION OF NAIVE CHICKS WITHVIBURSA L


Thanks to the availability of mild Gumboro vaccineAviPro® VIBURSA L, the small but vibrant poultry indus-

try of the Fiji Islands has been able to protect its naive commer-cial broilers against field challenges of Infectious Bursal Diseasewithout causing any undesirable negative effects, as intensebursal damage or immunosuppression.Why naive? Hatching eggs are imported into the Fiji Islands fromparent breeders located in New Zealand. Being a Gumboro-freecountry, New Zealand refrains from vaccinating broiler breedersagainst this disease. The result is a generalseronegative status for parent flocks, pro-ducing a progeny with virtually no mater-nally derived antibodies. These so-callednaive chicks, for they have no passivelytransferred immunity, are hatched then inFiji, where field challenges of InfectiousBursal Disease may cause infection early intheir life. To face such challenge, the broilerchicks must therefore be immediately vac-cinated against Gumboro, as early as pos-sible, in the hatchery preferably. However,most commercially available intermediate

vaccines, if administered before 7–10 days of age, may causea certain bursal damage and immunosuppression, an unde-sirable trait for reaching optimum economical performance.The mild character of AviPro® VIBURSA L comes in as a safealternative to immunise the young unprotected birds and anexcellent stimulator of active protection against Gumboro. Bruce Graham, from LAH distributor Pacificvet, is glad to have theavailability of this safe and efficacious mild vaccine, which is animportant tool on the immunity build-up of chicks free from mater-

nally derived antibodies not only in Fiji, but also throughout other nations of the South Pa-cific Islands. Kent Deitemeyer, also from Pacif-icvet, understands that AviPro® VIBURSA L isan excellent product for day-of-age vaccina-tion on an American-style serial dose pro-gramme for immediate protection of an ex-pected percentage of the hatch with very lowor no maternally derived antibodies. Still, onthe case of naive chicks hatched in the SouthPacific, Deitemeyer owes the feasibility ofthese commercial birds thanks to the mild andefficacious qualities of AviPro® VIBURSA L.

As Salmonella protection is of such great importance, specialfocus has to be put on vaccination procedure itself, and also onthe control of the take of the vaccine by the birds.Not only a producer of avian vaccines, Lohmann also has tools toensure success of vaccination, identify the presence of the vaccinestrain in the drinking water during vaccination, and also differen-tiate field salmonella strains from the vaccine strains. Therefore LAH has already introduced two helpful vaccinationcontrol tools to the market. The water stabiliser AviBlue, whichensures maximum protection of the vaccines from unwanted orharmful conditions in the drinking water (chlorine, minerals,disinfectants) while the blue dye enables the vaccine-mixedwater to be visualised, both for indicating that the vaccine solutioncomes out of the drinker lines and for tongue-staining the birdsto assess vaccine coverage. The second tool is our patentedAviPro® PLATE, which allows the easy and reliable differentiationof field and vaccine strains under laboratory conditions.Now Lohmann is soon going to introduce a testing “chip”, whichwill be an extra aid on the verification of proper vaccination pro-cedures. The actual brand name of this chip is Single Path Salmon-ella Test kit, basically designed for the food industry.

Technically, this is a so-calledGLIA Test (Gold-Labelled Im-muno Assay Test). It has allcomponents brought onto oneplastic carrier, and it startsimmediately after adding adrop of water. One drop ofwater into the round hole atthe lower end of the chip willslowly move through the filter

paper, activating the reagents. In case of the presence of salmon-ellae in the water, two red bars will appear in the upper window (Cstands for control, T for test). If you have 2 bars visible, the watercontains a minimum of 105 Salmonella, and the one bar indicatesthat the test is working properly. In fact, to a certain extent, it verymuch works like a quick pregnancy test. The relevance of the 105

value comes from the bacterial count needed per ml of drinkingwater to effectively immunise a bird. This simple, disposable chipwas developed by Merck, and its accuracy and safety have beenvalidated for the food industry and fulfils all their quality require-ments. One test picks up any salmonellae, be it SE or ST.

AviPro® VIBURSA L in Fiji, applied by

spray vaccination in the hatchery.

Left: positive control;

right: negative control.

Products

IMPROVEMENT OF VACCINATION CONTROL

LAH recently hired Dr ThanakridLuupanyalerd as Technical Service

and Marketing Manager for the ASEAN coun-tries. Based in Bangkok, Dr Thanakrid willprovide technical service for our productrange to all customers in the region. He willalso be in charge of the organisation andsupervision of all registration activities andthe preparation of technical and scientificpapers.

Dr Thanakrid holds a Ph.D. in veterinary science from the NipponVeterinary & Animal Science University, as well as an MBA ingeneral management from the Kasetsart University. His previouswork experience includes a position as lecturer at the Mahana-korn University and a position as Regional Technical Managerfor a well-known vaccine manufacturer.

Avian Professionals

Susanne Parr has been hired asExecutive Director of Product

Quality for the LAHI facilities in Winslow,Maine. Ms Parr came to us from the Germanvaccine manufacturer IDT, where she wasresponsible for the production of viral vaccines. At LAHI she heads the QualityAssurance Team, which audits and over-sees all making, testing and shipping of LAHI

vaccines to assure full compliance with internal and externalregulations. In addition, Ms Parr oversees sanitary personnelpractices, including materials and staff flow into clean rooms,from class “D” to class “C” > “B” > “A” areas.

NEW EXECUTIVE MANAGER OF PRODUCT QUALITY AT LAHI

Katrina Bragg has been appoint-ed Product Manager for LAHI.

A native of Sidney, in Maine, Ms Bragg graduated in Veterinary Technology fromthe University College in Bangor. Ms Bragg has worked since August 2005 atLAHI in Winslow. Coming from our registrat-ion department she will now strengthenthe Planning Team by fulfilling the newly

created position of Product Manager. She will be involved inthe final product line choices, the submission of potential newvaccines to the upper management as well as the coordinationof NAFTA marketing efforts.

NEW PRODUCT MANAGER AT LAHI


Katrina Bragg.Susanne Parr.

NEW TECHNICAL SERVICE AND MARKETING MANAGER FOR LAH THAILAND

Thanakrid

Luupanyalerd.

After the tremendous success of the Wild Poultry Poster, showing the ancestryof today’s commercial chicken, which was demanded and distributed all overthe world, LAH, or more precisely our in-house artist Eduardo Bernardi, createda Wild Turkey and Guinea Fowl Poster with drawings of the ancestors and relatives of these species. The poster is available through our customer servicedepartment in Cuxhaven.

What’s new?

NEW WILD TURKEYAND GUINEA FOWLPOSTER

What’s new?

CREDITSNEWS

Providing technically profound and helpful information material to our customersand business partners is one of the highest priorities of Lohmann Animal Health.Next to a variety of brochures, information sheets and presentations in English,we also want to offer a range of our most important materials in several otherlanguages.

To the 11 product brochures already available in Spanish, LAH has now addeda Spanish version of its new intermediate plus Gumboro vaccine AviPro® IBDXTREME. The brochure is currently available through customer service at LohmannAnimal Health in Cuxhaven.

Also, our first brochures in Arabic are now on hand. The brochures:

AviPro® SALMONELLA VAC EAviPro® PRECISEAviPro® IBD XTREMEAviPro® 401 ND-IB-IBD-REO

can be obtained in Arabic through our Area Sales Manager for the Middle East,Dr Ioannis Mavromatis.

Publisher:Lohmann Animal Health GmbH & Co. KGHeinz-Lohmann-Straße 4 · 27472 Cuxhaven · Germany · www.lah.de

Editor:Anna-Christina Riebau, Product Manager, Technical Marketing Poultry [email protected]

LAH ENLARGES ITS RANGE OF NON-ENGLISHBROCHURES


CONTEM-PORARY ARTSERIES CONTINUED

The very popular poster series “contem-porary art of vaccination” was recentlyextended. After the success of the Cha-gall poster, LAH added to its series a“chickenised” version of the art nouveaupainting The Kiss by the Austrian painterGustav Klimt. The sketch of the posterwas created by Eduardo Bernardi andwas finalised by Lutz Jahnke, a regionalartist of Cuxhaven, specialised in iconicimagery and painting with gold. Theposter is available through the customerservice at Lohmann Animal Health in Cux-haven.

The Kiss by Eduardo Bernardi and

Lutz Jahnke

What’s new?

avipro news issue 6

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