Cameron Mitchell Restaurants founder and CEO Cameron Mitchell reveals the impact of disease on commodity prices in ‘The Claman Countdown’.
Although a candidate for an avian flu vaccine is not yet commercially available, medical experts advise people to get it when it is.
dr. Linda Yancey, an infectious disease and internal medicine specialist at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston, told FOX Business that this vaccine will be critical in protecting people and those around them from highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A (H5N1), otherwise known as bird flu.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that “the US government is developing vaccines against avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses in case they are needed.”
According to the CDC, human infections with the HPAI A (H5N1) virus are rare, but unprotected exposure to any infected animal or an environment where infected birds or other infected animals are or have been increases the risk of infection.
The avian flu virus in wild birds has caused outbreaks among commercial poultry and backyard flocks, and has spread to wild and domestic mammals, according to the CDC. Since 1997, sporadic human infections have been reported in 23 countries, with a mortality rate of more than 50%. But as of 2022, only a few human cases have been reported. Most infections occur after close contact with sick or dead infected poultry or after exposure to dairy cattle during H5N1 outbreaks.
US EGG PRODUCTION DECLINES AS PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE ALONG WITH BIRD FLU CASES
Those at higher risk for bird flu — poultry workers, dairy farmers and livestock farmers — are told to wear protective clothing, including an N95 mask, gloves and eye protection, to reduce the chance of exposure.
Earlier this week, concerns about the virus increased when a patient died in Louisiana after being hospitalized with the first human case of bird flu. Louisiana Department of Health officials confirmed that the patient contracted H5N1 after exposure to a combination of a non-commercial backyard flock and wild birds. This marked the first death linked to bird flu.
Yancey said the virus is very concerning, given that it has a high mortality rate and has already spread from birds to mammals.
“We know that it’s only a few mutations away from being able to spread from person to person, which is why we moved forward and started vaccine development,” Yancey said. She believes this will either “fail because we’re actively monitoring this… or it will mutate, spread and affect the population.”
Earlier this week, concern about the virus grew when a patient in Louisiana died after being hospitalized with the first human case of bird flu. (Mary Kang/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Emergency physician from New York dr. Robert Glatter told FOX Business that people need to be “vigilant.”
With “bird flu circulating among birds and other mammals, including dairy cattle and pigs, the prospect of a ‘reassortment event’ increases the likelihood of a genetic mutation that is very problematic,” he said.
A “reassortment event” occurs when two different viruses swap genetic material, creating a new virus with a mixture of the properties of both. This often happens with viruses like the flu and can lead to new strains.
BIRD FLU PATIENT HAD VIRUS MUTATIONS, CAUSING CONCERN ABOUT HUMAN SPREAD
Yancey said it shouldn’t be too long before a new vaccine is created.
“All we have to do is make this new strain, which is something we do literally every flu season. Every flu season we have a new vaccine against the strains that are circulating that season. So all we have to do is make this a new strain,” she added.
Freshly laid chicken eggs in baskets before being washed and packaged for sale at a farm in Pleasureville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
In July 2024, Moderna received $176 million from the US government to develop an mRNA-based vaccine that could be used to treat bird flu in humans.
Glatter said the development of a bird flu vaccine is “necessary at this point in light of the recent deaths,” and once approved, he believes patients at higher risk of adverse outcomes — those with lung and heart disease, chronic kidney disease, patients with cancer and those with autoimmune conditions — should be the first recipients. After that, it should expand to lower-risk patients, he said.
EGG PRICES ARE HIGHER AND WILL CONTINUE IN 2025
For now, the best way to protect people is to get vaccinated against the seasonal flu. Vaccination against seasonal influenza “reduces the possibility of co-infection of a human being with an avian and human influenza virus. It also reduces the possibility of human influenza strains spreading to animals such as pigs.”
This ultimately reduces the chances of a reassortment event.
