Vaccination against the H5N1 avian flu with mRNA vaccines can protect against severe disease and death, new animal studies show.
These mRNA vaccines are similar to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines developed to combat COVID-19. The H5N1 flu has been known to infect wild birds and poultry, with occasional spillover to humans, since the late 1990s. However, since 2021, a major outbreak of a strain that can infect many mammal species — from sea lions to cattle — has spread around the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported 66 human cases and one death. The fatality was a Louisiana man over the age of 65 who had contact with backyard poultry and wild birds.
There has not been any human-to-human spread of the H5N1 flu detected yet. But as animal-to-human infections continue to occur, researchers are preparing for the possibility of a pandemic. The new CDC study of mRNA vaccine options is one of several lines of work on mRNA and more traditional vaccines ongoing, according to study author Bin Zhou, the team lead for vaccine preparedness in the CDC’s influenza division.
▲ Avian flu can have devastating consequences in densely packed poultry farms. Now, mRNA vaccines...
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