Feb 21 Interview with Dr. Andreas Bublat

The passion for feathered animals is based on my ornithological curiosity, especially for wild birds, which has existed since childhood.

The exciting field of poultry opened up to me during my studies of veterinary medicine and especially during my training as a veterinary specialist for poultry medicine.

What are your expectations of your new job? What do you find appealing about your new field of activity?

As a member of the Global Technical Service Team, I am particularly looking forward to the intensive exchange with international colleagues, learning from their expertise and contributing my veterinary part to finding solutions.

The challenge of responding to the different circumstances and needs of the various markets in the world is a very special attraction for me.

I am convinced that this task can only be accomplished successfully by a holistic approach consisting of experts from the fields of:

What is your specialty?

During my previous work as a poultry veterinarian and later as technical service in the pharmaceutical industry, I was intensively dealing with vaccines for poultry. In particular, the prevention and control of salmonella was a focus of my work there.

What makes salmonella so important?

As a life-threatening zoonosis for humans, salmonellae are still of great importance in the poultry industry today and can cause great economic losses for the farmer. The possible sources of introduction into a poultry farm are very versatile.

A high level of biosecurity in combination with a reliable vaccination strategy is essential to produce safe food.

What should you pay particular attention to with the Salmonella vaccination?

The available vaccines do have differences. Depending on the legal requirements, farm management and infection pressure, the appropriate strategy must be chosen.

In order to build up a strong protection, it is particularly important that the salmonella vaccine strain reaches the chicken before any field strain.

Since infection can already occur in the first days of life, the chicks must be vaccinated as early as possible, in the best case on the first day of life.