EU signs contract for 665,000 vaccines for people ‘most exposed’ to potential animal transmission

Fifteen member states of the EU and the European Economic Area are participating in this joint purchase, including France.

The EU steps up its fight against bird flu. It concluded a contract allowing it to purchase, on behalf of member states, up to 665,000 doses of a vaccine preventing the transmission of disease to humans, while several cases have been reported in the United States, in Mexico and Australia. The European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), set up during the Covid-19 pandemic, concluded a “framework contract” to acquire these doses within four years from the British laboratory Seqirus. This market comes with an option for 40 million additional doses.

Fifteen member states of the EU and the European Economic Area (the Twenty-Seven plus Norway, Iceland and Liechenstein) are participating in this joint purchase, the European Commission said in a press release. France and Finland are part of it, but not Germany, according to the European executive, which has not communicated the complete list. These doses will be intended for “people most exposed” to the potential transmission of avian influenza by birds or animals, such as poultry workers and veterinarians, the press release said.

The vaccine from the Seqirus laboratory is the only one currently authorized in the EU against influenza caused in humans by H5 strains of the avian influenza virus. The framework contract signed by the Commission will enable each participating State “to order vaccines according to your needs”in order to “prevent the spread or the appearance of potential outbreaks”. First shipments are already “In preparation” to Finland, and shipments “to other countries” will follow, the same source emphasizes, without further details.

Several people have been infected with the “A H5N1” avian flu virus in the United States in connection with an epidemic of this virus in cows, according to American health authorities. The World Health Organization has called for strengthening the global detection network for H5N1, which has shown it can infect a large number of animal species. But no human-to-human infections have been noted. The WHO also reported in early June the death of the first human case of avian flu linked to another strain, H5N2, in Mexico on April 24, a death “multifactorial” according to her.