Shares of vaccine stocks (NASDAQ: MRNA), Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX), and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) rallied this week, appreciating 23.4%, 16.4%, and 9.3%, respectively, through Thursday trading, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

While these three stocks gained notoriety back in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears this week's detection of avian bird flu in a second U.S. citizen and the first-ever detection of avian flu in a human in Australia are spurring fears of an outbreak and thus a possible boon for companies that can quickly produce a bird flu vaccine.

A new avian flu, H5N1, was detected in cattle back in March, with one worker in Texas coming down with associated conjunctivitis at that time. But on Wednesday this week, a second U.S. dairy worker in Michigan tested positive for the avian flu as well. That same day, an Australian dairy worker also tested positive for avian flu, marking the first-ever human case of avian flu in that country.

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Source Fool.com