The United States and Europe consider vaccinating their workers against bird flu

U.S. officials said last week they were moving bulk vaccines from CSL Seqirus that closely matched the virus into finished vaccines that could provide 4.8 million vaccine doses.

European health officials told Reuters they were in talks to acquire CSL’s pre-pandemic vaccine.

Canadian health officials said they met with GSK, maker of Canada’s seasonal flu vaccines, to discuss acquiring and manufacturing a pre-pandemic avian flu vaccine once its production capacity against seasonal flu will have been released.

An estimated 20 percent of the U.S. milk supply shows signs of the virus, officials say. (AP Photo)

These actions follow the explosive spread of a new strain of avian flu that emerged in late 2020 and has caused an unprecedented number of deaths among wild birds and domestic poultry and has begun to infect many species of mammals.

In March, U.S. authorities reported the first outbreak of the virus in dairy cattle, which infected dozens of herds in nine states and two dairy workers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has estimated that 20 percent of the U.S. milk supply shows signs of the virus, indicating that wider spread is likely.

Human exposure to the virus on poultry and dairy farms could increase the risk that the virus will mutate and gain the ability to spread easily among humans.

“All of our efforts must be focused on preventing these events,” said Matthew Miller, co-director of the Canadian Center for Pandemic Preparedness at McMaster University.

“Once we have widespread infections in humans, we’re in big trouble.”

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, said she has had discussions with U.S. and Canadian officials about using vaccines to protect workers following the spread of the virus to new species of mammals.

Dawn O’Connell of the US Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration said the government was “closely studying” the possibility of vaccinating farmworkers and others in close contact with the virus.

The United States has contracts with CSL and GSK to test pre-pandemic vaccines that more closely match the circulating virus than the older H5N1 vaccines in stock.

The United States is moving forward with the CSL vaccine, a Department of Health and Human Services official confirmed.

Discussions about using a vaccine before the pandemic were underway at government level and among scientists in a number of places, including the United Kingdom, said Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology. at University College London, who also studies avian flu for the UK Department of Health. Security agency.

The European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority was working on a joint purchase of CSL Seqirus’ vaccine to “potentially prevent a pandemic”, spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker told Reuters.

A CSL spokeswoman said the company has been in talks with several governments about purchasing vaccines since 2022.

Those demands have accelerated with the outbreak in the United States, she said.