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USDA steps up fight against HPAI with on-site audits

The USDA says it is taking steps in the battle against highly pathogenic avian influenza. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden says cases of HPAI have been on the rise, and the department is encouraging producers to utilize the biosecurity audits.

He tells Brownfield those are completed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “We will send our Animal Plant Health inspection services out to their facility,” he says. “We will find where HPAI may be able to come into their facility, and we will work with them to rectify any weaknesses that we find.” 

Vaden says a vaccination isn’t available yet, but the department has launched the Poultry Innovation Grand Challenge.“We are funding fifty-eight projects that we hope will give the poultry industry additional tools to withstand highly pathogenic avian influenza,” he says. 

He says USDA is partnering with research institutes and private companies. “To help develop both therapeutics and preventative measures that hopefully will allow us, with the development of new technology, to stamp these things out,” he says.  

But, Vaden says, any vaccine development and roll out will take time. “We hope that in the future there would be something that we could deploy,” he says.  “Whether or not we do, and the manner in which we would deploy it is why we’re having these conversations now to figure out where industry is.  To figure out where our trading partners would be in that event, because we would need to make the right decision for the whole industry.” 

AUDIO: Excerpt from Brownfield’s interview with Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden