Should dairy farmers be vaccinated against bird flu?

Prevent or cure

The United States currently has 4.8 million doses of vaccines.

Quoted in the article by Scientific Americanthe director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases associated with the CDC says that the benefits of vaccination in the current situation are not clear, since it is not yet known whether the virus is easily transmitted from cow to cow. the human.

To date, 13 cases of avian flu in humans have been detected in the United States since last March. Since vaccination also carries risks, however minimal they may be (e.g. Guillain-Barré syndrome), a massive vaccination campaign seems premature for the CDC.

However, experts have been repeating for months that the number of human cases could be underestimated. People with flu symptoms, but who have not been tested, could thus have gone unnoticed.

So, waiting any longer amounts to taking a risky bet. When serious cases start showing up at hospitals, it will likely be too late, says a New York virologist in the Scientific American.