August 20, 2015
USDA preparing for recurrence of bird flu with possible vaccine use
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is preparing for the possible return of the bird fluthis fall (which begins late next month) that killed or led to the culling of some 48 million birds earlier this year.
As part of the preparation, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced Tuesday it is requesting from animal health companies for proposals for an avian flu vaccine to "help prevent illness in birds and interrupt the spread of the disease".
While it has not approved the use of vaccine to respond to any avian influenza outbreak in the past, APHIS said it is not ruling out vaccine use in the future.
APHIS added that it wants to create a stockpile of vaccines in sufficient numbers and that are available within 24 hours.
Companies must be capable of producing at least 100 million doses and up to 500 million doses, APHIS said, adding the vaccine must respond to the Eurasian H5 (EA H5) virus strain, which affected domestic poultry earlier this year.