Medical Xpress July 30, 2024
The U.S. will pay for flu shots for farmworkers this year, a strategy to prevent bird flu from changing into something more dangerous.
Dairy and poultry farms are dealing with outbreaks of bird flu, and 13 workers have picked up infections. All cases are mild and are believed to have spread directly from infected animals to people.
But health officials are worried about what might happen if people are infected with bird flu and seasonal flu at the same time. It’s possible the viruses could swap gene segments, in a process that scientists call reassortment. Bird flu, for example, could gain the ability to spread as easily among people as seasonal flu does.
To prevent coinfections, the Centers for Disease...
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