Hatchery Vaccination: A Path to Enhanced Productivity, Profitability and Reduced Antimicrobial Resistance.

By Alpha Ngunyale

Tanzania’s poultry sector stands at a critical juncture, with over 96 million day-old chicks produced annually across 26 registered and approximately over 170 unregistered hatcheries.

While this impressive production capacity demonstrates the sector’s potential, persistent challenges in disease management and vaccination practices continue to hamper its growth and sustainability.

This article explores how systematic implementation of hatchery vaccination could transform the sector, enhancing productivity and profitability while addressing the growing concern of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Data source: MoLF

The Current Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities

The Tanzanian poultry industry currently faces significant disease-related challenges that impact both productivity, profitability and Food security.

Newcastle disease (NCD) emerges as the primary concern in intensive farming systems, followed by coccidiosis, fowl pox, and fowl typhoid. Additional threats include salmonellosis, Gumboro disease, and infectious coryza. These diseases not only result in high mortality rates but also drive-up operational costs significantly impacting poultry farmers Profitability.

Recent studies in key regions including Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam, and Zanzibar reveal that vaccines and drugs constitute 6.3% of total production costs. This financial burden, coupled with complex vaccination requirements, often leads farmers to rely heavily on antimicrobials as a quick fix, contributing to a growing AMR crisis.

The AMR Challenge: A Growing Concern

The current situation regarding antimicrobial use in Tanzania’s poultry sector is particularly alarming. Research by BMC Veterinary Research indicates that 87.7% of poultry farms use antimicrobials for therapeutic purposes, with 41% of farmers failing to observe proper drug withdrawal periods.

This widespread antimicrobial use, combined with inadequate hygiene practices, has accelerated the development of resistant bacteria, creating risks throughout the poultry production chain and potentially affecting human health through consumption and handling of poultry products.

Current Vaccination Programs and Their Limitations

Tanzania’s current vaccination approach relies heavily on a combination of government-led initiatives and on-farm vaccination programs. The scale of these efforts is substantial, with approximately 696 million vaccine doses being utilized across the country (97.5% of which were used for poultry). Of these, 520 million doses are imported, while 176 million doses are produced domestically for addressing 13 priority diseases only (3 are poultry diseases)

However, the current on-farm vaccination approach faces significant limitations that impact its effectiveness:

1. The first major challenge lies in vaccine handling and cold chain maintenance. Many farmers, especially smallholders, lack proper storage facilities and reliable power supply, compromising vaccine efficacy. The journey from procurement to administration presents multiple opportunities for cold chain breaks, potentially rendering vaccines ineffective before they reach the birds.
2. Timing and administration accuracy pose another crucial challenge. On-farm vaccination requires precise timing and proper administration techniques, skills that many farmers and farm workers may not possess. Incorrect administration can lead to incomplete protection, while poor timing can leave birds vulnerable during critical periods of their development.
3. Labor constraints also significantly impact vaccination effectiveness. The process of catching and individually vaccinating birds for some diseases is labor-intensive and stressful for both workers and animals. This often leads to incomplete coverage within flocks, creating gaps in immunity that can allow diseases to persist and spread.
4. Cost implications of on-farm vaccination extend beyond the purchase price of vaccines. The need for specialized equipment, proper storage facilities, and additional labor adds to the overall expense. Furthermore, vaccine wastage due to improper handling or inability to use complete vials in smaller flocks increases the effective cost per bird.
5. Perhaps most concerning is the inconsistency in vaccination protocols across different farms. Without standardized administration procedures and proper monitoring, vaccination programs can vary significantly in their effectiveness, leading to unpredictable disease protection levels across the sector.

Hatchery Vaccination: A Strategic Solution

Hatchery vaccination represents a sophisticated approach to poultry disease prevention where vaccines are administered to day-old chicks during the narrow window between hatching and delivery to farms. This process takes place in a controlled hatchery environment using specialized equipment and trained personnel, ensuring standardized vaccine delivery to every chick before it leaves the facility.

The Tanzania Hatchery and Breeding Flock Regulation of 2019 provides a regulatory framework for commercial hatcheries, requiring control over baseline diseases such as Salmonella pullorum and Marek’s disease. However, current implementation reveals a significant gap – while most registered hatcheries vaccinate against Marek’s disease, only 16.7% provide vaccination against other critical diseases like NCD, IB, and IBD.

Benefits of Hatchery Vaccinations

1. Firstly, it ensures standardized and timely administration of vaccines, eliminating the variability often seen in farm-level vaccination programs. This consistency in vaccine delivery significantly improves disease prevention effectiveness and reduces the need for therapeutic interventions.
2. It reduces the operational burden on farmers, who often struggle with proper vaccine procurement, storage, and administration. By shifting these responsibilities to well-equipped hatcheries, farmers can focus on other crucial aspects of poultry management.
3. By reducing mortality rates and improving bird health, farmers can expect better feed conversion ratios and growth rates. The reduction in therapeutic interventions not only lowers production costs but also contributes to better food safety by minimizing antimicrobial residues in poultry products.
4. From a public health perspective, widespread adoption of hatchery vaccination represents a crucial step in combating AMR. By reducing the need for routine antimicrobial use, this approach aligns with global efforts to preserve antimicrobial effectiveness for both animal and human health.
5. A particularly significant benefit of hatchery vaccination is its ability to reduce viral pressure both in individual animals and throughout the breeding population. By diminishing the excretion of wild viruses, this approach provides better pathology control across the entire production chain. This reduction in viral circulation creates a more stable and healthier environment for poultry production, leading to improved overall flock performance.

The Path Forward

To realise these benefits, Tanzania’s poultry sector needs a coordinated approach involving multiple stakeholders. This includes:

• Training and technical support for hatchery staff to ensure proper vaccine handling and administration, investment in cold chain infrastructure to maintain vaccine efficacy, and development of quality control systems to monitor vaccination effectiveness.
• Additionally, regulatory authorities must strengthen oversight of unregistered hatcheries while providing pathways for their formalisation. This will ensure broader implementation of vaccination programs across the sector.
• The government should implement a targeted subsidy program for hatcheries that maintain comprehensive vaccination services. These subsidies could offset the initial capital investment required for vaccination equipment, cold chain infrastructure, and staff training.
• While the Tanzania Hatchery and Breeding Flock Regulation of 2019 provides a foundation, additional measures to ensure quality standards for hatchery operations are improved to safeguard our sector against preventable diseases and make poultry farming more profitable.

Conclusion

Hatchery vaccination represents a transformative opportunity for Tanzania’s poultry sector, as an association the TCPA is ready to champion this initiative by addressing disease challenges at their source, to enhance productivity, improve profitability, and contribute to public health through reduced antimicrobial use.