Effect of infectious bursal agent on the response of chickens to Newcastle disease and Marek's disease vaccination.

White Leghorn chickens raised from one day old in an environment contaminated by the infectious bursal agent (IBA) had lower geometric mean titers (GMT) as measured by the hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) test to the Newcastle disease virus (NDV), than control Leghorns reared in an uncontaminated environment. Immunosuppression, defined as a reduction in GMT, was most pronounced at 35-56 days old for Leghorns vaccinated with NDV at 1 and 28 days or at 28 days. In a separate trial with broilers, immunosuppression was similar at 42-56 days old. This study also demonstrated that IBA infection in chickens increased susceptibility to Marek's disease (MD). The unvaccinated control chickens infected with IBA averaged 56.3% MD lesions, whereas unvaccinated controls not exposed to IBA averaged only 18.1% macroscopic lesions. It was also found that 20.7% of the HVT-vaccinated chickens exposed to IBA had gross MD lesions, whereas those HVT-vaccinated chickens reared in an environment free of IBA had 2.99% gross MD lesions.