The Biden administration this week awarded a $176 million federal contract to Moderna to help fund a vaccine for avian influenza, also known as bird flu.

American officials in multiple states in the last few months have confirmed cases of bird flu infections among cows and chickens on dozens of farms, as well as three cases of humans being infected.

In response to these outbreaks and concerns that the virus could continue to spread, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority will provide millions of dollars in funding to Moderna to help in the latter stages of developing an mRNA-based vaccine, Axios reported. Moderna will use the same technology it used during the COVID-19 pandemic to create a vaccine for that virus.

Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O'Connell told reporters on Tuesday that this contract could help speed up the creation of a vaccine "if it looks like we're starting to see some pressure regarding what is happening with the dairy cows and starting to get extraordinarily concerned about additional human cases, severity of human cases, human-to human-transmission."

She added that officials "remain extraordinarily watchful" for further bird flu cases, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response is "working very closely with our other public health partners and trying to understand if and when we should move these vaccines from the lines and out into deployment."

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