TITLE: The bird flu vaccine is made with eggs. That has scientists worried.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-vaccine-chicken-eggs-researching-alternatives/
EXCERPT: To make raw material for an influenza vaccine, virus is grown in millions of fertilized eggs. Sometimes it doesn't grow well, or it mutates to a degree that the vaccine product stimulates antibodies that don't neutralize the virus — or the wild virus mutates to an extent that the vaccine doesn't work against it. And there's always the frightening prospect that wild birds could carry the virus into the henhouses needed in vaccine production.
"Once those roosters and hens go down, you have no vaccine," Bright said.
Since 2009, when an H1N1 swine flu pandemic swept around the world before vaccine production could get off the ground, researchers and governments have been looking for alternatives. Billions of dollars have been invested into vaccines produced in mammalian and insect cell lines that don't pose the same risks as egg-based shots.
"Everyone knows the cell-based vaccines are better, more immunogenic, and offer better production," said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Health Security. "But they are handicapped because of the clout of egg-based manufacturing."
The companies that make the cell-based influenza vaccines, CSL Seqirus and Sanofi, also have billions invested in egg-based production lines that they aren't eager to replace. And it's hard to blame them, said Nicole Lurie, HHS' assistant secretary for preparedness and response under President Barack Obama who is now an executive director of CEPI, the global epidemic-fighting nonprofit.
"Most vaccine companies that responded to an epidemic — Ebola, Zika, COVID — ended up losing a lot of money on it," Lurie said.
Exceptions were the mRNA vaccines created for COVID, although even Pfizer and Moderna have had to destroy hundreds of millions of doses of unwanted vaccine as public interest waned.
Pfizer and Moderna are testing seasonal influenza vaccines made with mRNA, and the government is soliciting bids for mRNA pandemic flu vaccines, said David Boucher, director of infectious disease preparedness at HHS' Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Bright, whose agency invested a billion dollars in a cell-based flu vaccine factory in Holly Springs, North Carolina, said there's "no way in hell we can fight an H5N1 pandemic with an egg-based vaccine." But for now, there's little choice.
BARDA has stockpiled hundreds of thousands of doses of an H5N1-strain vaccine that stimulates the creation of antibodies that appear to neutralize the virus now circulating. It could produce millions more doses of the vaccine within weeks and up to 100 million doses in five months, Boucher told KFF Health News.
But the vaccines currently in the national stockpile are not a perfect match for the strain in question. Even with two shots containing six times as much vaccine substance as typical flu shots, the stockpiled vaccines were only partly effective against strains of the virus that circulated when those vaccines were made, Adalja said.
However, BARDA is currently supporting two clinical trials with a candidate vaccine virus that "is a good match for what we've found in cows," Boucher said.
Flu vaccine makers are just starting to prepare this fall's shots but, eventually, the federal government could request production be switched to a pandemic-targeted strain.
"We don't have the capacity to do both," Adalja said.
TITLE: Farmworkers Face High-Risk Exposures to Bird Flu, but Testing Isn’t Reaching Them
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/farmworkers-bird-flu-risk-limited-testing-incentives-h5n1/
EXCERPT: Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for the national group United Farm Workers, said about 150,000 people work in U.S. dairies. She said many worker advocates believe the virus has spread to more people than tests are showing. “The method being used to surveil at-risk workers has been very passive,” she said.
Federal officials told reporters May 22 that just 40 people connected to U.S. dairy farms had been tested for the virus, although others are being “actively monitored” for symptoms.
Federal authorities recently announced they would pay farmworkers $75 each to be tested for the virus, as part of a new program that also offers incentives for farm owners to allow testing of their dairy herds.
Officials of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they recognize the importance of gaining cooperation and trust from front-line dairy employees.
CDC spokesperson Rosa Norman said in an email that the incentive payment compensates workers for their time contributing to the monitoring of how many people are infected, how sick they become, and whether humans are spreading the virus to each other.
She noted the CDC believes the virus currently poses a low risk to public health.
But Strater is skeptical of the incentive for farmworkers to be checked for the virus. If a worker tests positive, they’d likely be instructed to go to a clinic then stay home from work. She said they couldn’t afford to do either.
“That starts to sound like a really bad deal for 75 bucks, because at the end of the week, they’re supposed to feed their families,” she said.
Katherine Wells, director of public health in Lubbock, Texas, said that in her state, health officials would provide short-term medical care, such as giving farmworkers the flu treatment Tamiflu. Those arrangements wouldn’t necessarily cover hospitalization if it were needed, she said.
She said the workers’ bigger concern appears to be that they would have to stay home from work or might even lose their jobs if they tested positive.
Many farmworkers are from other countries, and they often labor in grueling conditions for little pay.
They may fear attention to cases among them will inflame anti-immigrant fervor, said Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Societies have a long history of blaming marginalized communities for the spread of contagious diseases. Latino immigrants were verbally attacked during the H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic in 2009, for example, and some media personalities used the outbreak to push for a crackdown on immigration.
SEE ALSO:
H5N1 Bird Flu Now Found In Beef, But Experts Say The Food Supply Remains Safe
https://www.iflscience.com/h5n1-bird-flu-now-found-in-beef-but-experts-say-the-food-supply-remains-safe-74420
Drinking unpasteurized raw milk containing bird flu viruses may be dangerous, new study finds
https://www.salon.com/2024/05/28/drinking-unpasteurized-raw-milk-containing-bird-flu-may-be-dangerous-new-study-finds/
Japan, US among countries to ban Victorian poultry imports due to bird flu
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-05-29/japan-joins-us-in-victorian-poultry-import-ban-bird-flu-outbreak/103907032
Texas ‘Ground Zero’ for Bird Flu Outbreak
https://dallasexpress.com/health/texas-ground-zero-for-bird-flu-outbreak/
Michigan Battles Escalating Bird Flu Outbreak as Dairy Herds in Calhoun, Clinton, Ionia Counties Impacted
https://hoodline.com/2024/05/michigan-battles-escalating-bird-flu-outbreak-as-dairy-herds-in-calhoun-clinton-ionia-counties-impacted/
Avian Flu seen in dairy cows is spreading into Kansas
https://www.wibw.com/2024/05/29/avian-flu-seen-dairy-cows-is-spreading-into-kansas/
More than 4 million chickens to be killed in Iowa after officials detect bird flu on farm
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millions-chickens-to-be-killed-bird-flu-detected-iowa-farm/
Alpacas infected with H5N1 avian flu in Idaho
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/alpacas-infected-h5n1-avian-flu-idaho
China reports fatal H5N6 avian flu case
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/china-reports-fatal-h5n6-avian-flu-case-0
CHP closely monitors human case of avian influenza A(H5N6) on Mainland
https://www.bastillepost.com/global/article/3860868-chp-closely-monitors-human-case-of-avian-influenza-ah5n6-on-mainland