Many Americans do not have existing immunity to the highly pathogenic avian influenza, a new study indicates. The U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected blood from 489 people and tested their blood for antibodies against clade 2.3.4.
4b A H5N1, a strain of the avian influenza that is currently circulating in the United States. “This study found no pre-existing neutralizing antibodies to 2.3.
4.4b. A(H5N1) and that fewer than 1% of people had low binding antibodies,” a CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
The data mean “that there is little to no pre-existing immunity to this virus and most of the population would be susceptible to infection from this virus if it were to start infecting people easily and spreading from person-to-person,” the CDC said. The avian influenza, or bird flu, has been circulating in the country for years among poultry. Only one confirmed human infection was confirmed before 2024.
But the influenza jumped to cattle in late 2023 or early this year. Cases have been confirmed in 112 herds across 12 states, and cattle are believed to have transmitted the flu to at least three people out of about 45 tested, according to federal and state authorities. There are no signs as of yet that the flu is spreading from person to person, the CDC and other experts say, although some say not enough testing is being done.
“To monitor the escalating threat to humans of the H5N1 avian flu virus, we need to up our game: There n.
