Teynep Tufekci talks about that in her latest New York Times column, suggesting that we should be ready for the possibility of a new H5N1 flu pandemic.
She references the commercial poultry outbreak, now approximately a year old, that has decimated laying chickens and caused egg prices to spike. She adds that, in Spain, this strain of bird flu spread to mink, and then, the alarming part, showed itself to be apparently spreadible between mink by further evolving to infect upper, rather than lower, respiratory areas. If this did happen, it's the first case of direct mammal-mammal transmissibility, plus, mink's respiratory system is similar enough to ours ...
In addition, when it hit Danish mink farms in 2020, they appear to have infected humans with H5N1 that further mutated after infecting them.
She says that for this, as well as animal welfare reasons that should be obvious, we need to shut down mink farms.
Vaccines, right?
But, most current vaccines are incubated in eggs. Oops.
Older vaccines may still have potency, or mRNA vaxxes could be, perhaps, created for H5N1. But, their limited potency should be clear by now, and thus they should only be a last resort.
She says encouraging voluntary vaccination of chicken farmers and employees, and maybe at hog farms too should be part of our preventative work, and definitely the first step if a pandemic breaks out. What if we get resistance? Do we flip Trump's "essential workers" and mandate vaccines?
She also mentions mass vaccination of poultry and pigs. Great idea. Why doesn't USDA require it?
At her Substack, she offers more thought on H5N1 transmissibility, mink farming lack of ethics and more.
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