Two vaccine candidate viruses Federal health officials say the basic components that manufacturers use to make the vaccine appear well suited to protect against the H5N1 strain that is circulating in dairy cows and birds. If needed, it will likely be weeks or months before vaccinations are first available, according to a Health and Human Services official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials say the center is conducting regular seasonal influenza surveillance at more than 100 public health laboratories in every state and through enhanced surveillance being conducted across the country to prevent people from contracting H5N1. He said they are well equipped to detect whether they are infected. in 2022 for anyone exposed to a bird infected with that strain.
“The CDC and the entire U.S. government are taking this situation very seriously,” CDC Director Mandy Cohen said in an interview. “Until last week, there was no confirmed avian influenza in cattle. That's new. It's a reservoir for the virus to circulate and potentially change.”
The development comes after the coronavirus pandemic, the worst global health crisis in 100 years, exposed vulnerabilities in the nation's public health infrastructure and eroded public trust in key federal agencies. This raises serious questions about whether the country is well-equipped to deal with the outbreak.
More than a half-dozen federal officials say it's their job to prepare for the worst, but say the risk to the public remains low. H5N1 was first identified in geese in China in 1996, but past outbreaks have not led to outbreaks in humans.
Avian influenza has received increased attention after the highly virulent H5N1 strain was recently identified for the first time in U.S. dairy cows. Federal and state officials announced Monday that a dairy worker in Texas is being treated for avian influenza, making it the second human infection of this avian influenza strain in history in the United States. The patient, who experienced eye irritation as the only symptom, had been exposed to cattle presumed to be infected with the virus. Disease trackers are monitoring additional cases, particularly whether the virus can jump from person to person, which is a rare occurrence and could cause further alarm.
“The risk of avian influenza to the general population remains low because the virus we're seeing in cattle and in this human case is the same genetic virus that we're seeing in poultry,” Cohen said. he said. Viruses have not yet evolved to easily infect humans.
Because bird flu is not a new virus, some experts believe the country is better prepared to deal with such an outbreak than the new coronavirus, but caution against overconfidence. .
Some pointed to significant cuts in funding for pandemic preparedness.
“Federal funding for pandemic influenza has not kept pace with the threat, even by the government's own assessment,” said former Senate Majority Leader John F., a member of the Coalition to Stop the Flu, which includes public health organizations and vaccine manufacturers. said Tom Daschle, president of “. statement on Tuesday.
Daschle said the government body responsible for defining medical response requirements has asked for $1.15 billion in funding to combat the 2025 pandemic flu. But it fell far short of Biden's 2025 budget request of $335 million. (Congress appropriated $335 million) For pandemic influenza preparedness in the latest spending bill. )
Two weeks ago, a bipartisan spending package also made significant cuts to reserve funding, Daschle said. The money could have been used to accelerate vaccine development and manufacturing, improve diagnostic and early warning capabilities and ensure front-line public health workers have adequate resources, he said.
Detecting changes in virus patterns starts with monitoring.
When there is a presumptive positive test, the state health department begins an investigation and sends the specimen to the CDC for confirmatory testing, said Vivian Dugan, the center's director. Agency's Influenza Division. CDC conducts extensive laboratory testing and analysis to determine the risk to public health. Sequencing of samples taken from infected dairy workers is expected to be completed by the end of this week.
As avian influenza outbreaks have spread globally in recent years, the CDC and Department of Agriculture have increased surveillance and are closely monitoring people infected with H5N1-infected birds or poultry for 10 days. More than 8,000 people are being monitored in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., New York City, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Until this week, the only positive case was in Colorado in 2022.
In the event of a human outbreak, rapid scale-up of vaccination will be paramount. The country's 10-year plan to modernize influenza vaccination has set a goal of administering the first doses of the vaccine within 12 weeks of an influenza pandemic declaration.
Federal officials point to some good news. That means creating a vaccine tailored for this particular strain of the virus and mass producing it would be much easier than the effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine. This is because a vaccine against bird flu already exists. Experts say it's possible to modify them to better protect against this particular strain.
This scenario would probably only occur if human-to-human transmission was fairly widespread. But there are also trade-offs. Manufacturers have limited ability to produce influenza vaccines.Manufacturer is It is currently in the midst of producing an estimated 156 million to 170 million doses of the annual seasonal influenza vaccine, which will be administered in the fall.
Public health officials and experts said it would be a risky political decision to suspend production and switch to making millions of doses of a new vaccine.
“Our verdict is 1,” CDC's Dugan said, referring to this single human case.
“The good news is that a bulk vaccine has been developed.” [a government stockpile] But I don't think we should assume all Americans will get the jab,” said another federal health official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
If you get infected with bird flu, you may be able to treat it with antiviral drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration for influenza. Experts and officials said there is no sign that current strains are resistant to these treatments. The country has an emergency supply of antiviral drugs in the Strategic National Stockpile and is also available on the commercial market.
“After our experience with COVID-19, it has become increasingly clear that some people prefer post-infection therapeutic intervention to preventive vaccination,” said Taylor Sexton, executive director of the Health Preparedness Coalition. said in an email. . “Vaccines and therapeutics are two sides of the same coin when fighting pathogens, and both remain important.”
