A local company just landed a federal contract to make millions of vaccines.
CSL Seqirus will deliver nearly 5 million doses of vaccines for the H5N1 strain of influenza, also known as bird or avian flu.
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The company's manufacturing facility in Holly Springs has expanded after multiple contracts with the federal government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). This time, they're working to get ahead of the potential spread of avian flu.
Jon Kegerise, CSL Sequirus vice president of manufacturing, said, "That means that we have all the infrastructure, all the research and development and all the commercial capabilities that are required to distribute a vaccine to the United States should a pandemic be declared.
We can very quickly get this material to the people that might need it most to predict those people at highest risk are those that are interfacing directly with birds or animals that might have avian flu."
BARDA has ordered 4.8 million doses of the vaccine to fight the strain of H5N1 (bird flu) that is currently circulating.
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Kegerise says projects like this are why the company exists and why it will continue to grow.
"It's what we do. It's what we've been built for," he said.
On Thursday, a third case of bird flu in humans was reported in the United States, this time in a farm worker in Michigan. The farm worker reportedly had direct contact with infected cattle.
That person's symptoms were described as mild.