Leading pharmaceutical companies have said they can produce hundreds of millions bird flu vaccines for humans within months in case of an avian influenza outbreak.
Executives from pharmaceutical companies Moderna, GSK, Seqirus and Sanofi said they are developing and testing human vaccines that better match the circulating subtype H5N1 as a precaution against a possible future bird flu pandemic.
The current outbreak of avian flu, also known as H5N1, has killed record numbers of birds and other infected mammals. Human cases have also been reported; in February, an 11-year-old girl died after she was infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The World Health Organization (WHO) described the bird flu situation as “worrying” due to the rapid rise in cases in birds and mammals, and recent human infections.
