Moderna awarded $590M to help accelerate development of mRNA-based bird flu vaccine: HHS
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(NEW YORK) — Moderna has been awarded approximately $590 million from the federal government to help speed up the development of an mRNA-based bird flu vaccine, alongside other influenza vaccines, health officials announced Friday.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a press release that the funding will allow the pharmaceutical company to accelerate the development of an H5N1 mRNA influenza vaccine “that is well matched to strains currently circulating in cows and birds and expands the clinical data supporting the use of mRNA vaccines that may be needed if other influenza strains emerge with pandemic potential.”
Moderna said the funding will support the expansion of clinical studies “for up to five additional subtypes of pandemic influenza.”
The U.S. government previously awarded the vaccine manufacturer $176 million in July 2024 to help expedite the development of an mRNA vaccine that could be used for bird flu.
mRNA technology is the same type that was used in the development of some COVID-19 vaccines. While some vaccines use a weakened or inactive virus to stimulate an immune response, mRNA vaccines teach the body how to make proteins that can trigger an immune response and fight off an infection.
Researchers can often design mRNA vaccines more quickly than they can produce the live or weakened pathogens needed for a live-attenuated or inactivated vaccine.
The federal government already has two bird flu vaccine candidates, which use traditional vaccine technology, available in the nation’s stockpile. Officials previously noted they’d have 10 million ready-to-use doses within the beginning of 2025. Vaccines were being stockpiled as a precaution.
“Avian flu variants have proven to be particularly unpredictable and dangerous to humans in the past. That is why this response has been a top priority for the Biden-Harris Administration and HHS,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Friday. “Accelerating the development of new vaccines will allow us to stay ahead and ensure that Americans have the tools they need to stay safe.”
Bird flu cases in humans have been spreading across the country since April 2024 with 67 confirmed cases as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The first death of a human bird flu patient was reported in Louisiana earlier this month. The patient was over the age of 65 and had underlying medical conditions, according to health officials.
Most human cases have occurred after coming into contact with infected cattle, infected poultry farms or other culling operations.
The CDC and other public health officials say there is currently no evidence of human-to-human transmission and the risk to the general public is low.
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In his first public comments on the measles outbreak hitting West Texas and New Mexico, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic whose first steps in combatting the outbreak will be closely watched, said his department was monitoring the situation daily but called it “not unusual.”
“Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year there were 16. So, it’s not unusual, we have measles outbreaks every year,” Kennedy said Wednesday at the White House.
However, some public health experts were quick to point out that the outbreak in Texas has defied America’s recent history with highly contagious disease.
Prior to this outbreak, the U.S. had not seen a death from measles since 2015. And in 2000, years after the U.S. implemented a two-dose vaccine schedule, measles was declared eliminated from the U.S., meaning that the disease had stopped spreading within the country.
Only in recent years have cases and outbreaks been rising, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico is already drawing close to the halfway mark of total cases seen nationally last year, when there were at least 285 cases of measles – which were also the highest numbers since 2019, according to the CDC’s latest figures.
And while there were 16 outbreaks last year, that was a four-time increase from the number of outbreaks in 2023, when there were just four outbreaks. The U.S. has nearly hit that 2023 number already, just two months into 2025.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, called Kennedy’s comments about measles cases happening “every year” an attempt to normalize an outbreak that has been anything but normal.
“First of all, we eliminated measles from this country by the year 2000. The reason measles have come back is because a critical percentage of parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children, because they’ve gotten misinformation and disinformation from people like him and his Children’s Health Defense,” Offit told ABC News.
Children’s Health Defense, a group founded by Kennedy, advocates against the recommended vaccine schedule for children.
“It’s unconscionable enough that he’s done that, but that he sort of glibly says, well, measles outbreaks occur every year — the point is they don’t have to occur at all, because we’ve shown we could eliminate this disease,” Offit said.
ABC News has reached out to HHS about RFK Jr.’s comments.
The increase in cases and outbreaks over the last few years coincides with decreasing vaccination coverage for measles among kindergarteners nationally from 95.2% during the 2019-2020 school year to 92.7% in the 2023-2024 school year – leaving about 280,000 kindergartners at risk, according to the CDC.
Kennedy, prior to taking his role as HHS secretary, said the measles vaccine is effective at preventing measles, but has also suggested that it’s not necessary because people who die from measles are typically malnourished or have other comorbidities.
“The measles vaccine definitely eliminates measles, or, you know, close to eliminates it,” Kennedy said in 2022.
But he went on to question the deadliness of the disease.
“In 1963, it was killing only 400 kids a year. Mainly, they were kids who had malnutrition, or had some other devastating co-morbidity,” Kennedy said. “Those were the kids who were dying.”
Kennedy has also questioned that the deaths of 83 people – mostly young children – in Samoa in 2019 were caused by measles, despite widespread evidence that the deaths were due to an outbreak of the disease caused by under-vaccination in the American territory.
“Nobody died in Samoa from measles. They were dying from a bad vaccine,” Kennedy told an interviewer last year.
20% of kids with measles in the U.S. require hospitalization, said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, often for measles pneumonia, measles diarrhea, measles encephalitis or deafness from measles otitis, an ear infection — many of which can be life-threatening conditions.
“This is a bad, bad actor. And I’m really concerned that this thing is continuing to accelerate and expand,” Hotez said Wednesday night in an interview on MSNBC.
Doctors in West Texas have described shock and feaver-treating a disease they thought was something of the past.
“This is the first time I’ve had any professional experience with a measles outbreak,” Dr. Lara Johnson, pediatrician and Chief Medical Officer at Covenant Children’s and Covenant Health in Lubbock, who is currently treating measles patients from the outbreak in West Texas, told ABC news.
“I saw one travel-related case when I was in medical school, very briefly, but at that time, back in around 2000, we really thought that we’d eradicated measles from the United States and didn’t have any anticipation of seeing any outbreaks here,” she said.
The outbreak in Texas is a prime example of the risk posed to unvaccinated communities. Vaccine exemptions among children in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, have grown dramatically in the past few years. Roughly 7.5% of kindergarteners had filed an exemption for at least one vaccine in 2013. 10 years later, that number rose to over 17.5% – one of the highest in all of Texas, state health data shows.
As the response to the outbreak in Texas and New Mexico continues, with cases expected to significantly rise, public health experts like Hotez and Offit say they’re watching Kennedy, as leader of the nation’s health department, to encourage swift surveillance and widespread vaccination.
“I want him to say to the American public that there’s a safe way to prevent these outbreaks from happening so that we don’t have the tragedy like what just happened in West Texas,” Offit said. “There’s so much in medicine you don’t know. There’s so much we can’t do. This we know. This we can do.”
(WASHINGTON) — Measles is continuing to spread across the United States, as outbreaks grow in western Texas and New Mexico.
Between the two states, 256 cases have been confirmed as of Thursday, mostly in those who are unvaccinated or with unknown vaccination status, according to state health officials. At least one unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas has died and another suspected death is being investigated in New Mexico in an unvaccinated adult. At least 10 other states have also confirmed cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As health care professionals work to care for patients, they are also attempting to combat the proliferation of misinformation about how to prevent and treat the disease, some tell ABC News.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been one of the prominent voices on measles, making comments that public health experts say are not accurate.
In multiple interviews, Kennedy has claimed that vitamin A and cod liver oil are effective treatments for measles. He also said that poor diet contributes to severe cases of measles and that — while vaccines prevent illness — they also cause severe illnesses and even death.
Some public health experts told ABC News these statements are not rooted in scientific evidence and could be quite dangerous for the public.
“I think it’s really important to try to stay away from these ideas of fringe theories or ideas that have not been scientifically proven,” Kirsten Hokeness, director of the school of health and behavioral sciences at Bryant University, in Rhode Island, told ABC News.
Vitamin A as a form of treatment
During an interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Kennedy said that HHS was currently providing vitamin A to measles patients for treatment. He claimed vitamin A can “dramatically” reduce measles deaths.
The World Health Organization recommends two doses of vitamin A in children and adults with measles to restore low vitamin A levels, which can help prevent eye damage and blindness.
However, experts who spoke with ABC News said it is not an antiviral treatment against measles (meaning it does not prevent infections), nor is there one available.
“Because it has been described that patients with vitamin A deficiency can have a more severe course, the WHO recommends low doses of vitamin A for children diagnosed with measles,” Dr. Carla Garcia Carreno, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Medical Center Plano in Texas, told ABC News. “This is a supplementation in case of deficiency, and it is not intended to treat the virus. High doses of vitamin A can have serious consequences.”
“Neither vitamin A nor cod liver oil will treat measles,” she concluded.
Poor diet linked to severe measles disease
Kennedy has claimed that poor nutrition plays a role in causing severe measles disease and that a healthy diet can lessen severity.
While malnutrition can be a factor in severe disease, malnutrition and nutritional deficits in measles patients have historically been seen in underdeveloped countries, according to experts.
Additionally, studies have found that mass nutritional supplementation “followed by an increase in vaccination coverage” can reduce measles infection and mortality.
“Certainly, good nutrition can promote a healthy immune system, and it’s a good idea for everyone to try to maintain good nutrition, but it’s certainly not a substitute for vaccination,” Dr. Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told ABC News. “There’s no evidence that it can prevent infection, no evidence that it can prevent an infected person from spreading the virus and contributing to one of these outbreaks.”
“So, I want to be very clear, good nutrition is absolutely no substitute for vaccination to prevent someone’s own risk for developing severe, maybe fatal, measles,” he added.
Claims about the safety of the measles vaccine
The CDC currently recommends that people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster.
Kennedy has said vaccines do “stop the spread of the disease” but also said they cause “adverse events.”
“It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself [causes], encephalitis and blindness, et cetera,” he told Hannity, without providing evidence.
Weaver said there is no vaccine that is without risks but that the MMR vaccine is incredibly safe and effective.
“There’s no evidence that it has severe outcomes … similar to what the measles virus infection causes,” he told ABC News. “It certainly can cause very minor reactions at the site of injection, like just about every vaccine, but it’s one of the safest vaccines that’s ever been developed.”
Weaver added that the risks of complications from a measles infection far outweigh any risks from the MMR vaccine.
As for Kennedy’s unfounded claim that the MMR vaccine causes death, a 2015 CDC review published in the journal Vaccine found such claims are deaths reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System – a voluntary reporting system “that accepts any submitted report of an adverse event without judging its clinical significance or whether it was caused by a vaccination.”
The review found that many of the deaths reported to VAERS claiming to be linked to the MMR included children who has serious underlying medical conditions or had deaths that were unrelated to the vaccine, including accidental deaths.
“These complete VAERS reports and any accompanying medical records, autopsy reports and death certificates have been reviewed in depth by FDA and CDC physicians and no concerning patterns have emerged that would suggest a causal relationship with the MMR vaccine and death,” the review stated.
Questioning ‘benefits’ of measles and fatality rate
Kennedy claimed in an interview with Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Seigel over the weekend that is “almost impossible” for measles to kill a healthy individual.
Some people who contract measles may suffer severe complications as a result of infection. While those most at risk include children younger than age 5, pregnant people and those with weakened immune systems, anybody can experience complications.
About in 1 in 5 unvaccinated people who contract measles are hospitalized and about 1 in 20 children with measles develop pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death in young children who get infected.
About one in 10 children infected with measles develop ear infections as well, which can lead to hearing loss, data shows.
Additionally, about 1 out of every 1,000 children with measles will develop encephalitis — which is the swelling of the brain and can lead to brain damage — and up to 3 out of every 1,000 children with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications, the CDC says.
Recently, Texas health officials reported the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, the first death from measles recorded in the U.S. in a decade. The child was healthy and had no preexisting conditions, officials said.
“The CDC estimates that 1 in 5 people [who] get infected with measles ends up in the hospital,” Hokeness said. “So, this approach to relying on sort of this natural immunity doesn’t make sense when we have a vaccine which prevents it in the first place.”
“But, in short, there’s really no benefit to this idea of natural immunity and naturally acquiring the virus. That’s why we’ve developed the vaccines that work so well,” she added.
Kennedy also claimed in his interview that natural immunity from measles may protect against cancer and heart disease. There is no evidence to suggest either of those are true, experts said.
“If you want to take your chances with getting natural infection, hoping that there might be some very small benefit to that, it’s a very big risk to take, because you may very well get severe measles infection,” Weaver said.
Overall, experts advised relying on scientifically proven medical information.
“We should leverage the knowledge that we’ve gained over the years and not spend our time focusing on alternative possibilities,” she said.
(LUBBOCK, Texas) — The measles outbreak in western Texas is continuing to grow with 20 additional cases confirmed, bringing the total to 279 cases, according to new state data published Tuesday.
Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Just two cases are among fully vaccinated individuals. At least 36 people have been hospitalized so far, the state said.
In the Texas outbreak, children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases, at 120, followed by children ages 4 and under making up 88 cases, the DSHS data shows.
“Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities,” the DSHS said in its update.
Two likely measles deaths have been reported so far in the U.S. The first reported death was an Texas, according to the DSHS. The child did not have any known underlying conditions, according to the department.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
