Serological response and protection level evaluation in chickens exposed to grains coated with I2 Newcastle disease virus for effective oral vaccination of village chickens.

Background: Conventional Newcastle disease (ND) vaccination strategies in village chicken production settings is impractical due to shortage of cold-chain, unsuitability of vaccine administration routes and demanding trained personnel and hence affected its adoption. Results from earlier works elsewhere showed that the heat stable vaccines such as NDI2 are thought to be promising for village chickens. This study investigated the suitability and efficacy of Ethiopian cereal grains as carriers for the orally administrated NDI2 vaccine in chickens.