2024-07-03 10:55:19
Experts have long been warning of the next pandemic. It could be caused by bird flu. Now Moderna is supposed to develop a vaccine.
The biotech company Moderna is receiving financial support from the US government for the development of its bird flu vaccine. The US government approved a financial injection of 176 million dollars, Moderna announced on Tuesday. The funds will be used for the final development and testing of a pre-pandemic mRNA-based vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus.
In the USA, the outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows has been causing concern since spring. In March, US authorities reported the first outbreak of the H5N1 virus in dairy cows. Since then, more than 130 herds have been infected in twelve states. Scientists fear that contact with the virus in poultry and dairy farms increases the risk that the virus will mutate and thus become more likely to be transmitted between people. Read more about this here.
Moderna began a trial of its bird flu vaccine mRNA-1018 in healthy adults last year. This trial included both the H5 subtype currently circulating in dairy cattle and the H7 subtype of bird flu. Results from this trial are expected later this year.
Moderna’s vaccine uses mRNA technology, which was also used in the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. “mRNA vaccine technology offers advantages in terms of efficacy, speed of development and production, scalability and reliability in combating infectious diseases, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel. Conventional flu vaccines can take four to six months to produce.