(CTN News) – The researchers’ results indicate that an experimental mRNA vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu was highly effective in preventing severe illness and mortality in laboratory animals.
Using MRNA, the researchers reached this conclusion.
The vaccine has the potential to prevent H5N1 bird flu outbreaks that are presently increasing in wild birds, poultry, and cows in the United States, according to researchers. At present, these epidemics are spreading throughout the nation.
The experts’ conclusions are that it is imperative to halt these epidemics in order to prevent the H5N1 virus from infecting humans. COVID vaccinations were developed using the same procedures as the vaccine. The vaccine was developed using these procedures.
“MRNA technology allows us to be significantly more agile in the development of vaccines; we can initiate the process of developing an mRNA vaccine within hours of sequencing a new viral strain with pandemic potential,” stated Scott Hensley, a senior researcher and professor of microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Hensley is a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s faculty.
Hensley stated in a news statement provided by the university that vaccines were challenging to manufacture during previous influenza pandemics, such as the H1N1 pandemic that occurred in 2009. Vaccines were not available until after the initial pandemic outbreaks subsided. “This was the case”
Eggs are frequently employed in the development of influenza vaccines.
Influenza strains that are believed to be the most prevalent and virulent are injected into fertilized chicken eggs by professionals, who then allow the virus to multiply in order to disseminate throughout the population. Subsequently, they induce the virus to become quiescent in order to employ it in influenza vaccinations.
Conversely, it may require up to six months for viruses to become accustomed to the fact that they can replicate in fertilized embryos. This results in a delay in production that extends beyond the initial few months of a pandemic, which are regarded as the most critical period.
Drew Weissman, director of Penn Medicine’s MRNA vaccine research,
He said, “Experts believed that the influenza virus was the most likely cause of a pandemic prior to 2020, and we had few options for developing a vaccine in the event of such an occurrence.” Dr. Drew Weissman uttered these remarks.
Weissman continued by asserting that COVID-19 served as an illustration of the efficacy of mRNA-based vaccinations as a means of promptly safeguarding humans from viruses that are in the process of emergence. As a result, we are now more adequately equipped to address a diverse array of viruses that have the potential to trigger pandemics, such as influenza.
The mRNA vaccine is designed to specifically target this specific subtype of the H5N1 virus, which is responsible for the widespread outbreaks that have been observed in birds and livestock.
Researchers are concerned that the continued transmission of this specific strain of the virus could result in its expansion and the onset of a global pandemic for the human population. This is despite the fact that this specific strain of the virus only occasionally infects humans.
The experimental vaccine elicited a substantial immunological response in laboratory rodents and ferrets, as indicated by the findings published in the journal Nature Communications on May 23. The researchers arrived at this conclusion.
In addition, the laboratory animals maintained substantial quantities of antibodies in their systems for an additional year following infection. Furthermore, animals that had been immunized against H5N1 were able to clear the virus more rapidly and exhibited fewer symptoms than those that had not been immunized.
The researchers also found that the mRNA flu vaccine was equally effective as a vaccination that was developed using conventional egg-based methods. This discovery was substantial. In the laboratory trial, both immunizations were effective in generating substantial antibody responses in the animals.
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