US Grants Moderna $176 Million to Develop Bird Flu Vaccine
The U.S. government has awarded Moderna $176 million to develop a vaccine for bird flu. This funding is intended to support the research and development needed to create a vaccine that can effectively fight avian influenza. Bird flu, or avian influenza, is a viral infection that primarily affects birds but can occasionally infect humans.
Recently, there has been an outbreak of bird flu, specifically the H5N1 strain, which has infected at least 132 dairy cow herds across 12 states in the U.S. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) links three human cases to exposure to sick cows. The virus was first detected in cows on March 25, as reported in late June.
To address this outbreak, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that funding wil...