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can we (are we?) preemptively develop vaccines against H5N1 flu that would at least reduce its severity should it breakout as a human pandemic?
@interfluidity they're probably already working on it as we speak
@inkican i hope so! god bless whoever they are.
@interfluidity they're probably in Wuhan, so buckle up
@interfluidity my understanding of how this would work is that any such vaccine would be purely speculative - i.e., might not work at all - because adaptations that allow the virus to reproduce in humans could render the vaccine ineffective.
Wiki sez, "Vaccination of poultry against the avian H5N1 influenza epizootic is widespread in certain countries. Some vaccines also exist for use in humans, and others are in testing. As of July 2024 these include Aflunov, Celldemic and Seqirus/Audenz."
The federal government is stockpiling doses while advising against vaccinating the farmhands that keep getting infected and seem like the likeliest interface to produce another zoonotic pandemic.
@interfluidity there’s likely to be a novel yet stable shape on h5n1 that we could nRNA-ify