An avian flu vaccine contract with Moderna may be suspended, pending review of the contract by the current administration, according to a recent Reuters news story. The vaccine contract was awarded to Moderna in January 2025 under the previous administration but is now under review by the current administration, according to the report.

In the meantime, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a five-pronged strategy to manage the current avian flu outbreak and mitigate exorbitant egg prices. This strategy was announced in a press release before the suspension of the vaccine development contract and includes vaccination as a strategy.

The plan, calls for boosting biosecurity for all US poultry producers to help prevent transmission from wild birds and increasing the use of epidemiologists for biosecurity audits. The plan also calls for increasing aid to farmers to increase poultry repopulation, easing regulations to increase egg supply in the United States, and considering short-term adjustments to increase egg imports and decrease exports.

In addition, “USDA will be hyper-focused on a targeted and thoughtful strategy for potential new generation vaccines, therapeutics, and other innovative solutions to minimize depopulation of egg laying chickens along with increased bio-surveillance and other innovative solutions targeted at egg laying chickens in and around outbreaks,” according to the press release.

Avian Flu Vaccine Is Essential

Highly pathogenic avian influenza continues to devastate poultry flocks throughout the United States, as well as cause significant illness in cattle, said David Diemert, MD, professor of medicine and professor of microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine at George Washington University in Washinton, DC, in an interview.

“There have also been several human infections in North America, including some severe disease and at least one death,” said Diemert. Although human-to-human transmission of avian flu has not yet occurred, the virus changes rapidly, he said. “Based on what we know about influenza, it is highly likely that a mutation in the virus could lead to person-to-person spread, which could be potentially devastating and lead to a pandemic,” Diemert said. “Therefore, development of an avian flu vaccine is absolutely essential to prepare for the possibility that mutation of the virus may occur and cause large numbers of human cases,” he emphasized. The mRNA vaccine technology can be modified more quickly to respond to mutations than traditional vaccine approaches, he added.

“Based on our experience with COVID-19, assuming all necessary resources are made available, an mRNA-based avian influenza vaccine could be made available for human use potentially as early as 6-9 months from when work was first started on it. For it to have an impact on the current outbreak, however, people who are in contact with not only domesticated poultry, but also wild birds would need to be vaccinated,” Diemert told. “An mRNA-based veterinary vaccine that would be given to domesticated poultry and cattle, however, could be produced even quicker given that the requirements for testing in animals before approval are not as stringent as for humans,” he said. Although an effective veterinary vaccine could have a huge impact on the current outbreak in flocks and herds, it would not impact the virus circulating in wild birds, which would remain as a potential source of a pandemic in humans, Diemert noted.

Research Gaps and Next Steps

“More surveillance of both domesticated birds and cattle as well as wild birds is needed to gain a better understanding of how the virus is spreading,” Diemert told Medscape Medical News. Increased and timely sequencing of strains of the virus is needed in order to quickly detect new strains and mutations, he said. “Testing farm workers for antibodies to the virus would be extremely helpful to understand how many people have already been infected since many seem to either have no symptoms or very mild symptoms,” he added. “The latter, however, has been very difficult given a lack of trust of many of these workers in government agencies,” Diemert said.

Diemert had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: