Researchers are developing an mRNA-based vaccine against the contagious H5N1 bird flu virus that is spreading rapidly among poultry and cattle and has already infected two humans in the United States.
The experimental vaccine is being produced using the same techniques as the ones used to make mRNA vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers said that mRNA vaccines are faster to develop and target to specific virus strains compared with traditional vaccines.
“The mRNA technology allows us to be much more agile in developing vaccines; we can start creating a mRNA vaccine within hours of sequencing a new viral strain with pandemic potential,” said senior researcher Scott Hensley, a professor of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in a press release. “During previous influenza pandemics, like the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, vaccines were difficult to manufacture and did not become available until after the initial pandemic waves subsided.”