Efficacy of thermostable I-2 Newcastle disease vaccine compared to B1 commercial vaccine in broiler chicken

Frequent vaccination failures have occurred in the broiler farms in Eurasian countries during Newcastle disease outbreaks. The disease is enzootic in many countries of the region, especially in southwest Asia. I-2 vaccine has been used successfully in village chickens in many Asian and African countries. Our preliminary study showed good efficacy of the vaccine in broiler chickens. Therefore the current experimental study was conducted to compare viral shedding period of heat resistance I-2 vaccine with B1 commercial vaccine following challenge with Herts’33. For this purpose three hundred commercial broilers were randomly allocated into four groups; 1) Thermostable I-2 vaccine, 2) Hitchner B1 vaccine, 3) Challenge group with no vaccine, and 4) Negative control group. Experimental chicks were vaccinated on days 19 and 26 by the eye drop route and then the birds were challenged via intra ocular route on day 40 with a suspension containing 106 EID50/ml challenge virus. Experimental chickens were monitored by collecting buccal and cloacal swabs at different times. Collected swabs were submitted to PCR test. The results showed that vaccination can protect the birds against mortality and also decrease virus shedding; also there was not a significant difference between vaccination with I-2 and B1 vaccines.