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?
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?
As far as I understand, a flu shot only offers protection for the strains it was designed to target. I don’t honestly know if they would offer protection from bird flu. I highly doubt it but I’m not a vaccine expert.
It varies, cross immunity is a thing for some families if viruses but not all. Sometimes the cross immunity is weak.
Seems like there’s no protection in the case of H5N1 from the regular vaccine, though. But there’s vaccines targeting it in development
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html