I used to be reminded of that truth when my littlest woke me for an early-morning cuddle, sneezed into my face, and wiped her nostril on my pajamas. I booked her flu vaccine the subsequent morning.
Within the US, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recommends the flu vaccine for everybody over six months outdated. This yr, following the unfold of the “chicken flu” H5N1 in cattle, the CDC is particularly urging dairy farm employees to get vaccinated. On the finish of July, the group introduced a $10 million plan to ship free flu pictures to individuals who work with livestock.
The objective just isn’t solely to guard these employees from seasonal flu, however to guard us all from a probably extra devastating consequence: the emergence of a brand new type of flu that would set off one other pandemic. That hasn’t occurred but, however sadly, it’s trying more and more potential.
First, it’s value noting that flu viruses expertise delicate modifications of their genetic make-up on a regular basis. This permits the virus to evolve quickly, and it’s why flu vaccines have to be up to date yearly, relying on which type of the virus is almost certainly to be circulating.
Extra dramatic genetic modifications can happen when a number of flu viruses infect a single animal. The genome of a flu virus is made up of eight segments. When two completely different viruses find yourself in the identical cell, they’ll swap segments with one another.
These swapping occasions can create all-new viruses. It’s inconceivable to foretell precisely what is going to consequence, however there’s all the time an opportunity that the brand new virus might be simply unfold or trigger extra severe illness than both of its predecessors.
The worry is that farm employees who get seasonal flu may additionally choose up chicken flu from cows. These folks may grow to be unwitting incubators for lethal new flu strains and find yourself passing them on to the folks round them. “That’s precisely how we expect pandemics begin,” says Thomas Peacock, a virologist on the Pirbright Institute in Woking, UK.
