The government awarded a $176 million contract to Moderna to develop an mRNA-based vaccine to protect people from bird flu, said Health Secretary Xavier Becerra on Tuesday. Public health officials say the risk to the general population was low from the H5N1 avian flu virus, and there were no immediate plans to use the vaccine.
Bird flu, which jumped to dairy cattle from birds last winter, has been confirmed in 137 herds in 12 states since late March. Three dairy farmworkers have contracted mild cases of the disease from contact with sick cows. The Agriculture Department launched a program to compensate dairy farmers for lost milk production in infected herds on Monday.
“We encourage everyone who is eligible to sign up,” said Eric Deeble, of the USDA, during a teleconference with federal health officials. Two dozen dairy farms were enrolled in a separate USDA initiative to help producers bear the cost of combating the H5N1 virus, and a seventh state was joining a USDA program for voluntary weekly tests for bird flu, said Deeble.
Nirav Shah, CDC principal deputy director, said “no final decisions are made” about use of bird flu vaccines.
With mRNA technology, development of a vaccine is more rapid than traditional methods, Covid vaccines being an example. Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel said the technology “offers advantages in efficacy, speed of development, and production scalability and reliability.”
“The award made today is part of our longstanding commitment to strengthen our preparedness for pandemic influenza,” said Dawn O’Connell, Health assistant secretary. Moderna will work on rapid development of a vaccine effective against various subtypes of the bird flu virus, including the H5N1 virus.
In May, the Health and Human Services Department, as a precaution, ordered 4.8 million doses of bird flu vaccine from a different supplier. Production of the doses was expected to begin in mid-July and run into August, O’Connell told reporters.
The USDA was looking into development of bird flu vaccines for livestock, but they are unlikely to be available soon. The USDA has stressed testing and enhanced biosecurity as the means to isolate the virus within a herd and let it die out.
To date, more than 780 people have been monitored for bird flu after exposure to infected or potentially infected animals, and at least 53 have been tested after they developed flu-like symptoms. The CDC said the health sector has administered more than 31,000 flu tests since March 3.