CBER’s Marks points to stockpiles of H5N1 vaccine as officials monitor reported human case

WASH­ING­TON — The US has some stock­piles of vac­cines for avian flu, FDA’s bi­o­log­ics head Pe­ter Marks said Mon­day as pub­lic health of­fi­cials raise the alarm over a re­port­ed case of avian flu in a hu­man in Texas over the week­end.

Speak­ing at a work­shop at the World Vac­cine Con­gress, Marks said it’s not un­heard of for oc­ca­sion­al virus trans­fers from an­i­mals to hu­mans that don’t spread fur­ther, and he ap­peared op­ti­mistic at how ca­pa­ble the US could be at re­spond­ing in the event that the virus spreads fur­ther. He said that the gov­ern­ment al­ready has stock­piles of vac­cines that are li­censed specif­i­cal­ly for H5N1 as well as some that could be “rea­son­ably good match­es” for avian flu.

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