A highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has been detected on South Korea’s Jeju Island. A drone sprays disinfectant at a seasonal resting place for migratory birds.
Photo: dpa/YNA/YONHAPNEWS AGENCY
The World Health Organization (WHO) is pushing ahead with the development of an mRNA vaccine for humans against the H5N1 bird flu subtype in less affluent countries. The Argentine pharmaceutical company Sinergium Biotech is leading the project, the WHO announced. As soon as preclinical results on vaccine candidates are available, the knowledge, technology and material needed for production will be shared with a network of other manufacturers in other countries.
The bird flu virus was first detected in 1996. Since 2020, it has been spreading exponentially and is increasingly affecting mammals, including dairy cattle in the USA. The United Nations is currently concerned about an increase in bird flu cases in humans and the emergence of a new H5N1 virus variant. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in July that the spread of bird flu in the Asia-Pacific region was “alarming”.
Development of vaccines using mRNA technology
According to the WHO, Sinergium has already started developing several vaccine candidates based on mRNA technology and is now preparing a feasibility study. After that, clinical trials can begin to develop bird flu vaccines in order to be better prepared for a possible pandemic.
The project is part of the mRNA technology transfer program launched by the WHO and the Medicines Patent Pool organization. The program, which involves 15 countries such as Ukraine, South Africa and Vietnam, began in 2021 to give countries with weak or medium economies access to mRNA vaccines to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
With mRNA vaccines, no pathogens or their components are required, as with conventional vaccines. Instead, parts of the virus’s genetic information are given to a few body cells as messenger RNA with the vaccine – in other words, the blueprint for individual virus proteins, also known as antigens, is delivered. These activate the immune system, generating a protective immune response.
A “more effective and fairer response”
The new initiative for mRNA vaccines against H5N1 shows “the reason why the WHO launched the mRNA technology transfer program,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. By promoting vaccine research, development and production in poorer countries, the world will be “better prepared” for the next pandemic and provide “a more effective and equitable response.”
According to the WHO, the advantage of bird flu is that there are already some approved vaccines that only need to be adapted to the respective variant. The head of the WHO vaccine research group, Martin Friede, sees mRNA vaccines as particularly suitable for a sustainable improvement in health care. The subsidized production of flu vaccines in developing countries using other methods has often been stopped as soon as the government no longer buys the corresponding vaccine. However, a plant producing an mRNA vaccine against bird flu is not limited to this pathogen, but can in principle “also produce numerous other vaccines and therapeutic agents.”AFP/nd
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