Effective vaccines are humanity’s best bet at combating avian flu, researchers say All vaccine types show promise in stopping the spread of the flu among animals and humans H5N1 bird flu is raging among U.S. poultry and cattle, raising concerns it will leap into humans WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Humanity’s best protection against bird flu will be the development of effective vaccines, a new study says.
The H5N1 avian flu has been raging through cattle and poultry in the United States, increasing fears that the virus will make the leap into humans and potentially cause another pandemic. Only two people to date are known to have contracted the virus linked to the current outbreak. Both patients were U.
S. farm workers, and luckily they only suffered eye symptoms and made a full recovery with treatment, researchers said. In the first human case, researchers found the strain had mutated to be better at infecting the cells of mammals.
The concern is that if H5N1 continues to spread in U.S. farms, it has the potential to mutate into a form that will easily spread among humans, researchers said.
Vaccines remain humanity’s best defense against the threat posed by the H5N1 and other strains of bird flu, according to the research published in the journal Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics . “The H5N1, H7N9, and H9N2 subtypes of avian influenza virus pose a dual threat, not only causing significant economic losses to the global poultry industry but also presenti.
