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Comment by throwawayffffas

1 day ago

There is a vaccine though.

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-prepares-five-million-vaccine-...

That's a vaccine for one strain: H5N1. I'm sure birds have many more strains and variants of virus. I'm sure a proper virologist can dive in here ...

I think people assume that a fever is caused by an infection but my understanding is that a fever is a response to the infection. The body raises its temperature deliberately to destroy a viral infection, even though it is unpleasant, as well as deploying the other defenses.

It seems, according to this article, that these bird 'flu infections are resistant to being cooked by a fever and that makes them more dangerous - we've lost a defense strategy.

  • Not a proper virologist, but H5N5 killed a person in Washington state recently.

    There will likely be some cross protection on the H5 antigen, just as some regular flu shots provide cross protection against the N1 antigen of H5N1. (The H5 and N1 subtypes won't be completely matched, respectively, but you don't always need complete matching for some protection.)