The covid-19 pandemic It has meant a true revolution in the fields of Public Health, medicine and pharmacology. After the importance of developing vaccines against any possible threat became clear, three companies (GSK, Moderna and CSL Sequirus) have recently announced that they are prepared to test their vaccines against avian influenza in humans, in anticipation that the disease could make the leap to humans and become a serious threat.
The fear of a possible jump to humans
As noted by the medical news outlet Medscapethe US Centers for Disease Control still considers the probability of the disease spreading to humans and posing a serious threat it is low. Still, the long duration of the current outbreak, along with its spread to other mammals such as foxes or seals, is worrying.
Specifically, the ongoing outbreak of bird flu started sometime in 2021. The development of several different strains has been detected and has reached great extension and persistence. For reference, outbreaks in animals usually surface and disappear in the space of a season, according to John Hopkins School of Public Health epidemiologist Meghan Frost Davis, quoted by Medscape. It is estimated that it has already affected some 58 million birds in the United States alone.
A problem of vaccine nationalism
At the same time, Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, also explains to the same outlet, it is feared that in a flu pandemic there could be a much greater problem of vaccine backlog and vaccine nationalism regarding the situation experienced in the face of covid-19.
And it is that, although the three manufacturers have already advanced that they have the capacity to manufacture “hundreds of millions” of doses, most of the doses that could be ready quickly are already reserved by high-resource countries.
References
Lisa O’Mary. Vaccine Makers Ready to Test Bird Flu Vaccine in Humans. Medscape (2023). Viewed online at https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/989921?src= on 03/25/2023.