First Country Rolls Out a Bird Flu Vaccine

Finland hasn't reported a single case of bird flu in humans yet, but the country isn't taking any chances. The country has become the first to roll out a vaccination campaign for workers at risk of infection, especially those at mink farms, reports Reuters. "The conditions in Finland are very different in that we have fur farms where the animals can end up in contact with wildlife," says Hanna Nohynek, chief physician at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. Some 485,000 mink and foxes were culled at fur farms in the country last year to prevent the spread of the H5N1 virus.

Finland has bought enough vaccines to give two-dose treatments to 10,000 people and it plans to offer vaccinations starting next week. The European Union's health crisis authority has signed a deal with vaccine maker CSL Seqirus for 665,000 doses. The contract includes the possibility to buy up to 40 million doses over four years, Politico reports. In the US, where the virus has jumped from birds to cows and at least three dairy workers have been infected, authorities say hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses could be ready within weeks. (More bird flu stories.)