I keep hearing I should get a flu shot to help prevent bird flu — but I thought flu shots only prevented illness from the particular strains the shot was designed for. Does getting a traditional flu shot do anything to prevent bird flu transmission?

    • JWBananas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 day ago

      And to further drive it home, that’s how we got SARS (civets), MERS (camels), and COVID (bats/pangolins/unknown).

      So get the damn flu shot. The new cell-based vaccines are much more likely to match the actively circulating strains than the older egg-based ones (due to so-called egg adaptation).

      We nearly had a patient zero in Louisiana already, and their case was only an H5 mutation (not recombination from human strains). https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/spotlights/h5n1-response-12232024.html

      H5 is widespread in wild birds, and it is spreading to cats. It is only a matter of time.

      • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        4·
        1 day ago

        Also, the flu shot is fucking easy. You won’t feel a thing. The needle is tiny so you don’t feel a thing, maybe a slight pinch but once it’s past the skin it’s painless. The most common side effect is a sore arm for a day, but no worse than you get from a workout, and if it’s bad just take some Tylenol or weed.

        Next time you’re at the pharmacy, just get it.