Improving Preparation and Response to Virulent Newcastle Disease (vND) in Southern California

chicken on grass

Improving Preparation and Response to Virulent Newcastle Disease (vND) in Southern California

From Poultry Ponderings

Virulent Newcastle Disease or vND is the chicken equivalent of Ebola (aka it kills a lot of birds including domestic poultry). VND is highly contagious and causes high (typically over 70%) morbidity as well as significant drops in egg production in “well-vaccinated” layer hens. While vND is not endemic in the U.S., periodic outbreaks (including 3 outbreaks in Southern California over the last 50 years) have resulted in the death and/or depopulation of millions of birds and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic costs.

The introduction and spread of vND during these outbreaks typically follow a pattern from non-commercial chickens to commercial chickens. Therefore, working with non-commercial poultry owners in historically affected areas of Southern California is an essential step toward improving preparedness.

To address these challenges, UC Davis was recently awarded a 4-year, $1 million grant to leverage social media, disease modeling and extension to improve preparation and response.

Read more here.

Article authors include: Maurice Pitesky, Joseph Gendreau, Myrna Cadena, Alec Michael, Theresa Valdez, Ashley Railey and Jingwen Zhang

Primary Category