In the meantime, Digard says it would be wise to check dairy herds in the UK for the new strain, although there is no evidence yet that it has escaped from North America.
In the EU, EFSA has advised increased surveillance in mammals, especially near poultry establishments affected by bird flu.
Do we have vaccines against bird flu?
There are vaccines that may work against bird flu, but it is still unclear how effective they will be against a particular strain and how quickly companies can scale up production.
A GSK spokesperson told POLITICO that the company has a contract with the European Union’s health emergency preparedness and response authority to produce 85 million doses of its pandemic preparedness vaccine, adjupanrix, if needed. Adjupanrix is a “mock-up” flu vaccine that can be adapted to any influenza strain that emerges as the cause of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the European Commission confirmed it had a joint contract with GSK and CSL Sekirus for the companies to deliver adapted flu vaccines if needed in the pandemic.
CSL Sekirus spokesman Andrew Fenwick told POLITICO that the company’s zoonotic flu vaccine will likely protect against the strain currently circulating in the US.
The European Medicines Agency has also approved AstraZeneca’s pandemic flu vaccine, which was tested using the H5N1 strain.