The US government has announced plans to allocate $10 million to combat bird flu infections among farm workers, including funding a seasonal flu vaccination program.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will dedicate $5 million towards vaccinating hundreds of thousands of livestock workers, following recent cases of human bird flu infections in Colorado, Michigan and Texas.
An additional $5m will be allocated to organisations like the National Centre for Farmworker Health to educate farm workers on how to protect themselves from avian influenza.
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The ongoing bird flu outbreak in the United States has affected poultry flocks in nearly every state since 2022, and 170 dairy herds in 13 states since March this year.
Despite the widespread outbreak, CDC's principal director, Nirav Shah, stated that the public's risk from the virus remains low.
Although the seasonal flu vaccine does not protect against bird flu, Dr. Shah noted that it could help reduce the chances of farm workers contracting both seasonal flu and avian influenza simultaneously. She explained: “Preventing seasonal influenza for these workers, many of whom are also exposed to bird flu, may reduce risks of new strains of influenza emerging."
The CDC aims to vaccinate all of the nation's 200,000 livestock workers during this flu season.
The UK's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has said it is closely monitoring the situation in the US, noting that there is no evidence of the virus circulating in UK or European cattle. The UK has not reported any recent cases of avian influenza in domestic poultry, and the risk from wild birds is considered low.
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