HEAL ▶▶▶TH
VIR Check contributes to lower viral pressure in poultry houses
A new test enables broiler farmers to measure the results of the cleaning and disinfection of their poultry houses. It shows just how effective the process of cleaning poultry houses actually is in between rounds. The Dutch animal health service GD is debuting its VIR Check worldwide.
BY BERRIE KLEIN SWORMINK B
roiler farmers devote a lot of time to cleaning and disinfecting their poultry houses after delivering a flock. It takes days and has just one purpose: to make sure that the new chicks arrive in a comforta-
ble and pathogen-free environment. The effectiveness of the process is not always clear. “If a poultry house looks clean at first glance, that does not mean it is actually spotless,” says Sjaak de Wit, poultry vet and researcher at Royal GD in the Dutch town of Deventer. “The traditional method for check- ing cleanliness using ‘Rodac plates’ does not provide conclu- sive information. Rodac plates are used to determine whether easily growing bacteria are still present in the poultry house.
VIR Check indicates five viruses
VIR Check is a tool which can be used to ascertain whether the cleaning and dis- infecting process in a poultry house was successful. This test determines the vi- ral pressure in a broiler house. Cloaca swabs provide the basis for the test. The broiler farmer or vet takes swabs from 6 to 7-day-old chicks and transfers them to an FTA card for testing and shipment purposes. VIR Check indicates the pres- ence and amount of five contagious viruses: rotaviruses A and D, chicken astro- virus, aviary nephritis virus 3 and reovirus. VIR Check shows three results: green, orange and red. Green indicates that the cleaning and disinfection process in the poultry house was successful. Orange is the score most broiler farms achieve. Red is a signal that cleaning and disinfection need more attention. VIR Check costs € 89. More info available at:
www.gdanimalhealth.com/lab-services/vir-check
26 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 3, 2020
The principle is that if you find such bacteria, there will also be viruses left in the poultry house. However, if you do not find these bacteria, there is no guarantee that all the viruses have also gone.” To determine the effect of the cleaning and disinfecting pro- cess on viruses, GD has developed its own VIR Check. This test focuses on ‘naked viruses’. As De Wit explains, “‘naked’ sug- gests that you can easily eliminate them by cleaning and dis- infecting the poultry house. However, the opposite is true. Naked viruses are generally very resistant to cleaning and dis- infecting. This is not the case with viruses encased in an enve- lope. These viruses have a layer of fat on the outside which makes them vulnerable to soap and disinfectant”. Examples of naked viruses are reoviruses, the Gumboro virus, rotavirus- es and astroviruses. Unlike bacteria, viruses cannot just be picked up from the floor or wall for examination, so VIR Check uses material in the cloacas of week-old chicks. “When an ani- mal is infected, it quickly produces more virus in just a week’s time. That’s why we carry out our measurements at 6 or 7 days old,” says De Wit.
Field trial GD started a field trial several months ago in cooperation with De Hoop Mengvoeders, AdVee Veterinarians and 22 broiler farms. Its aim was to discover whether the VIR Check score also has a predictive value for the flock’s techni- cal results. The first round results at the 22 participating farms are in, while the second round is still ongoing at most farms, so these results have not yet been disclosed. Flamur Llapa- shtica, poultry specialist at De Hoop Mengvoeders, has al- ready noticed that the tests lead to greater awareness. “One poultry farmer’s first round results were all green because he had organised everything very well. In the second round, the result from one of his poultry houses was dark red. It ap- peared that he had not soaked the poultry house prior to cleaning it before the second round. He had also used a dif- ferent disinfectant in a lower concentration. This confirmed what he already suspected: the score went up rapidly. This system more clearly shows the effect of what you are doing.”
PHOTO: BERT JANSEN
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