On August 18, 2008, a seminar was held on Avian Influenza (AI) Field Trial Vaccination Study Report in Lido, Bogor district. The study was collaboration between the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, the Livestock Service Office of Sukabumi district, Wageningen International, and Center for Indonesian Veterinary Analytical Studies (CIVAS). The seminar was attended by representative of the Animal Health Directorate, Ronny Mudigdo, DVM; representative of the Veterinary Research Institute (Bbalitvet), Abdul Adjid, DVM, MS; Head of the Livestock Service Office of Sukabumi district, Ir. Asep Sugianto, MM and staff; representatives from Wageningen International, Ivo Classen and Annemarie Bouma; and guests from vaccine manufacturer PT. Medion, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and from farms involved in the two year study on AI field trial vaccination.

In his opening remark, Head of the Livestock Service Office of Sukabumi district thanked all parties, especially CIVAS, for all the cooperation in the last 2 years in helping disease control, not only AI, but also other zoonotic diseases such as rabies which is endemic in Sukabumi district. He hoped the good collaboration could be continued and he also invited donors to help animal disease mitigation programs in Sukabumi district.

From Wageningen International, Ivo Classen warmly welcomed the invitation to help control disease in Sukabumi district from the Head of the Livestock Service Office. Ivo said the report of this study was written since the study ended last year, but further discussion and analysis was required, hence it was then reported at the time the seminar was held. Parts of the report had been written as an article in OIE’s international journal in 2008 by Annemarie Bouma. Representative from the Animal Health Directorate expressed his appreciation to all parties involved in finishing the study, thus all of the results could be reported through the seminar.

The report was presented by CIVAS Executive Director, Albertus Teguh Muljono, DVM and was continued with a question and answer session. The study concluded that commercial layer treatment farms given 3 times vaccination at 4, 10, and 16-18 weeks of age using a homologous local vaccine had better antibody titers compared to control farms given the farm’s own vaccination program and vaccine. Meanwhile, broiler native chicken treatment farms given 2 times vaccination at 10 and 30 days had significantly different antibody titers compared to control farms that were given 1 time vaccination at 10 days of age.

Titers in native chickens were below the level of protective titer recommended by the government, which is 24, but had a rising tendency, even though it seemed very slow. Besides that, even though ring vaccination conducted in native chickens in a 1 km radius from treatment farms had produced low antibody titers, but the proportion of native chickens with antibody titers ≥ 24 in those areas was significantly higher compared to the proportion of birds with antibody titers ≥ 24 in areas surrounding control farms. This study also demonstrated that sentinel chickens could be used as a DIVA strategy for AI control in poultry in Indonesia.