(31 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Memphis - 30 May 2024
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Webby, flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital:
“What we've seen since late 2021 is the bird flu - the H5 virus that sort of used to be a problem of other parts of the world - has come to the Americas, and over the ensuing couple of years has spread widely in bird populations. And somewhere either at the end of last year or early this year, that virus has somehow found its way into dairy cattle and, you know, unfortunately has been spreading ever since.”
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2. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Webby, flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital:
“I think right now in the epidemiology of this infection in cows, we don't know where it's heading. It could burn through the population and burn itself out in a few weeks, or a few months. Or it could be here to stay. You know, I think it's too early to tell which of those routes this is going to take. And we have no sort of historical data to base it on.”
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3. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Webby, flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital:
“What the COVID-19 pandemic taught us was some of these newer technologies can be used to rapidly prepare vaccines against emerging threats like the H5 virus. And so, you know, the particular work that we're involved in here with colleagues in Pennsylvania were actually to use that same technology that was used essentially to make a Covid vaccine, but instead of it expressing the SARS coronavirus antigens, it was expressing flu antigens.”
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4. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Webby, flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital:
“Right now this particular virus much prefers to be a bird virus, or I guess in this case even a cow udder virus as well, but, you know, the risk to humans is low. But it's certainly not zero. And the more opportunity we give this virus to grow in different hosts, to be subjected to different environments - you know, this is a virus, this is a flu virus. And what do viruses do best? They change. So the more opportunities we give this virus to change, then again we do increase the risk to humans. But right now it is low. It's not a virus that's very infectious for humans at all.”
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5. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Webby, flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital:
“There is no perfect vaccine approach to any of it. They all have their drawbacks. They all have their pluses. And so, you know, of course, if we have attacked the problem with multiple solutions, then that's absolutely going to be the best position we can be in.”
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STORYLINE:
The bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows is prompting development of new, next-generation mRNA vaccines - akin to COVID-19 shots - that are being tested in both animals and people.
Next month, the U.S. Agriculture Department is to begin testing a vaccine developed by University of Pennsylvania researchers by giving it to calves. The idea: If vaccinating cows protects dairy workers, that could mean fewer chances for the virus to jump into people and mutate in ways that could spur human-to-human spread.
Meanwhile. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been talking to manufacturers about possible mRNA flu vaccines that, if needed, could supplement millions of bird flu vaccine doses already in government hands.
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Негізгі бет Scientists are testing mRNA vaccines to protect cows and people against bird flu
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