The University of Maryland and researchers from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (USD-ARS) have received $648,881.00 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop a nasal vaccine to protect dairy cattle from bird flu. That could prevent the disease from infecting dairy farm workers and lessen the chances it will evolve into a human virus.
H5N1, the current strain of bird flu circulating around the U.S. is a moving target that has rapidly adapted to infect other animals like dairy cattle, domestic cats, and even humans. But it’s not yet a “human virus” because it can’t spread between people. So far, the only people who have gotten sick from H5N1 seem to have contracted it from working with dairy cows. But scientists are concerned, because the more people who are exposed to bird flu, the more opportunities the virus must mutate.
Xiaoping Zhu, a professor and chair of the University of Maryland's Department of Veterinary Medicine, along with his collaborator Wenbin Tuo from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), is planning to cut down those opportunities by adapting the nasal spray technology they originally developed for COVID-19 and human influenza into a nasal vaccine against H5N1 in cows. The vaccine could also potentially be used in humans if necessary.
“Preventing the initial infection and spread of H5N1 in cows means reducing exposure to the virus for other mammals, dairy workers, and the general public,” Zhu said. “And that is critical to managing the spread of bird flu."
Injection-based vaccines such as mRNA vaccines trigger immune cells in the blood, which then attack a virus once an infection starts. But the flu is a respiratory disease in which the virus enters the body through the nose and mouth. Zhu and Tuo’s nasal vaccine delivers a vaccine protein to the nasal passages, which blocks viruses from infecting cells in the respiratory tract and prevents infections from even starting. That greatly reduces the likelihood of humans and other animals contracting the H5N1 virus from cows.
Funding from the grant would enable them to adapt the nasal vaccine technology they developed and test it in cattle.
Source : umd.edu