CDC offering free flu shots for farm workers

[RonO]

https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/30/cdc-offers-farmworker-seasonal-flu-shots-latest-news-bird-flu-outbreak/

Even though this virus is being spread by the dairy herd they are still
calling it bird flu. The CDC is going to offer flu vaccinations to farm
workers. This is the normal seasonal flu vaccine and not against dairy
H5N1. What they want to prevent is coinfection. If someone is infected
by both virus they can recombine and something worse could result. This
is why they have wanted to keep the dairy virus off pig farms, but they
refuse to test the pig farms in counties with the dairy virus. The USDA
is quoted as thinking that they are containing the spread, but that is a
joke. They don't even know the extent of the spread and how many states
actually have infected herds because they have refused to start testing
and contact tracing.

Since they have not identified all the infected herds they will need to
vaccinate all the dairy workers as well as other farm workers. All
poultry farm workers need to be vaccinated because poultry farms get
infected in states with infected dairy herds. In Michigan they found
out that 17% of dairy workers also worked at poultry farms or had close
contacts that worked at poultry farms. They need to vaccinate all farm
workers working with animals.

One thing that they haven't thought of is that most of the current
seasonal flu vaccines have live attenuated virus. These produce the
most effective immune response. As crazy as it may be they may produce
the recombinant virus that they want to prevent by vaccinating a dairy
worker already infected with the dairy virus. A recombinant does not
have to inherit the attenuation adaptations, and can just inherit the
infective ability of the vaccine virus. They likely need to test farm
workers for H5N1 and make sure that they are not already infected before
vaccination.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO
https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/30/cdc-offers-farmworker-seasonal-flu-shots-latest-news-bird-flu-outbreak/
Even though this virus is being spread by the dairy herd they are still
calling it bird flu.  The CDC is going to offer flu vaccinations to farm
workers.  This is the normal seasonal flu vaccine and not against dairy
H5N1.  What they want to prevent is coinfection.  If someone is infected
by both virus they can recombine and something worse could result.  This
is why they have wanted to keep the dairy virus off pig farms, but they
refuse to test the pig farms in counties with the dairy virus.  The USDA
is quoted as thinking that they are containing the spread, but that is a
joke.  They don't even know the extent of the spread and how many states
actually have infected herds because they have refused to start testing
and contact tracing.
Since they have not identified all the infected herds they will need to
vaccinate all the dairy workers as well as other farm workers.  All
poultry farm workers need to be vaccinated because poultry farms get
infected in states with infected dairy herds.  In Michigan they found
out that 17% of dairy workers also worked at poultry farms or had close
contacts that worked at poultry farms.  They need to vaccinate all farm
workers working with animals.
One thing that they haven't thought of is that most of the current
seasonal flu vaccines have live attenuated virus.  These produce the
most effective immune response.  As crazy as it may be they may produce
the recombinant virus that they want to prevent by vaccinating a dairy
worker already infected with the dairy virus.  A recombinant does not
have to inherit the attenuation adaptations, and can just inherit the
infective ability of the vaccine virus.  They likely need to test farm
workers for H5N1 and make sure that they are not already infected before
vaccination.
Ron Okimoto

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/9/24-0696_article

The CDC is acknowledging something that was known months ago. Cattle
mammary glands have both of the sialic acid modifications used by
influenza to enter the cell. Avian influenza prefers the alpha 2,3
linkage that is usually expressed at a low level in mammalian cells, but
the mammary gland cells have both the alpha 2,3 and alpha 2,6 linkages.
This makes the cattle mammary gland the perfect tissue to evolve a virus
that can better infect mammals. Not surprisingly the CDC does not
acknowledge that the presence of both sialic acid receptors in mammary
tissue makes it more likely that the virus will make the transition from
alpha 2,3 to alpha 2,6 since both are expressed in the same tissue
producing infective virus.

It is an utter tragedy that the CDC has not attempted to identify all
the infected herds so that the infection can be better contained and
instead has allowed the infection to pretty freely continue to infect
more herds. It is pretty clear that the infection is spreading in
states that have not yet admitted to having infected herds, and neither
the USDA nor the CDC is doing anything to identify these infected herds.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO

Post by RonO
https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/30/cdc-offers-farmworker-seasonal-flu-shots-latest-news-bird-flu-outbreak/
Even though this virus is being spread by the dairy herd they are
still calling it bird flu.  The CDC is going to offer flu vaccinations
to farm workers.  This is the normal seasonal flu vaccine and not
against dairy H5N1.  What they want to prevent is coinfection.  If
someone is infected by both virus they can recombine and something
worse could result.  This is why they have wanted to keep the dairy
virus off pig farms, but they refuse to test the pig farms in counties
with the dairy virus.  The USDA is quoted as thinking that they are
containing the spread, but that is a joke.  They don't even know the
extent of the spread and how many states actually have infected herds
because they have refused to start testing and contact tracing.
Since they have not identified all the infected herds they will need
to vaccinate all the dairy workers as well as other farm workers.  All
poultry farm workers need to be vaccinated because poultry farms get
infected in states with infected dairy herds.  In Michigan they found
out that 17% of dairy workers also worked at poultry farms or had
close contacts that worked at poultry farms.  They need to vaccinate
all farm workers working with animals.
One thing that they haven't thought of is that most of the current
seasonal flu vaccines have live attenuated virus.  These produce the
most effective immune response.  As crazy as it may be they may
produce the recombinant virus that they want to prevent by vaccinating
a dairy worker already infected with the dairy virus.  A recombinant
does not have to inherit the attenuation adaptations, and can just
inherit the infective ability of the vaccine virus.  They likely need
to test farm workers for H5N1 and make sure that they are not already
infected before vaccination.
Ron Okimoto

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/9/24-0696_article
The CDC is acknowledging something that was known months ago.  Cattle
mammary glands have both of the sialic acid modifications used by
influenza to enter the cell.  Avian influenza prefers the alpha 2,3
linkage that is usually expressed at a low level in mammalian cells, but
the mammary gland cells have both the alpha 2,3 and alpha 2,6 linkages.
This makes the cattle mammary gland the perfect tissue to evolve a virus
that can better infect mammals.  Not surprisingly the CDC does not
acknowledge that the presence of both sialic acid receptors in mammary
tissue makes it more likely that the virus will make the transition from
alpha 2,3 to alpha 2,6 since both are expressed in the same tissue
producing infective virus.
It is an utter tragedy that the CDC has not attempted to identify all
the infected herds so that the infection can be better contained and
instead has allowed the infection to pretty freely continue to infect
more herds.  It is pretty clear that the infection is spreading in
states that have not yet admitted to having infected herds, and neither
the USDA nor the CDC is doing anything to identify these infected herds.
Ron Okimoto

It should be noted that the CDC raised the risk of having a pandemic
with the H5N1 last week, but decided to keep doing the nothing that they
are doing. They decided to keep doing what obviously is not working to
reduce the spread of the dairy virus and reduce human exposure. Early
on they decided not to test the dairy workers nor look for all the
infected herds. They gave up and decided to monitor for the virus going
to the next level and becoming a human pandemic. Their stupid strategy
is to monitor the human population for increased influenza infections
and go to those areas and try to stop the spread once it has started to
easily infect humans.

As I have noted before one of the regions with increased influenza virus
in their waste water are several counties around San Francisco. High
waste water levels is associated with dairy herd infections in Texas and
Michigan. By the time they observe a spike in influenza cases in the
Bay area a world wide pandemic is assured because San Francisco has an
international airport.

Ron Okimoto