Although a candidate vaccine against avian influenza has not yet been made commercially available, medical experts advise that people should get it once it is.

Dr. Linda Yancey, an infectious disease and internal medicine expert at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston, told FOX Business that the vaccine will be critical to protecting people and those around them against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). A (H5N1 virus), also known as bird flu.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that “the US government is developing vaccines against avian influenza A (H5N1) viruses in case they are needed.”

According to the CDC, human infections with the HPAI A (H5N1) virus are rare, but unprotected exposure to any infected animal or to an environment where infected birds or other infected animals are or have been increases the risk of infection .

According to the CDC, the bird flu virus in wild birds caused outbreaks among commercial poultry and backyard flocks and has spread to wild and domestic mammals. Since 1997, there have been sporadic human infections in 23 countries, with a fatality rate of more than 50%. But only a few human cases have been reported since 2022. Most infections occur after close contact with sick or dead infected poultry or exposure to dairy cattle during ongoing H5N1 outbreaks.

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Those most at risk for avian influenza (poultry workers, dairy farmers, and livestock farmers) are asked to wear protective clothing, including an N95 mask, gloves, and eye protection, to reduce the potential for exposure.

Earlier this week, concern about the virus grew when a patient died in Louisiana after being hospitalized with the first human case of bird flu. Officials from the Louisiana Department of Health confirmed that the patient had contracted the H5N1 virus after exposure to a combination of a non-commercial flock and wild birds. It marked the first bird flu-related death.

Yancey said the virus is of great concern, given that it has a high mortality rate and has already spread from birds to mammals.

“We know that it’s only a couple of mutations away from being able to be passed from person to person, so we’ve moved forward and started development of a vaccine,” Yancey said. She believes that this “will be wiped out because we’re actively monitoring it … or it will mutate and spread and affect the population.”

Earlier this week, concern about the virus grew when a Louisiana patient died after being hospitalized with the first human case of bird flu. (Mary Kang/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)

New York City emergency physician Dr. Robert Glatter told FOX Business that people should be “vigilant.”

With “bird flu circulating among birds and other mammals, including dairy cattle and pigs, the odds of a ‘reassortment event’ increase the likelihood of a genetic mutation that is very problematic,” he said.

A “reassortment event” occurs when two different viruses exchange genetic material, creating a new virus with a mixture of traits from both. This happens often in viruses like the flu and can lead to new strains.

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Yancey said it shouldn’t take too long to create a new vaccine.

“All we have to do is make this new strain, which is something we do literally every flu season. Every flu season, we have a new flu vaccine for the strains that are circulating that season. So everything what we need to do is make this new variety,” he added.

Freshly laid chicken eggs in baskets before being washed and packaged for sale at a farm in Pleasureville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)

In July 2024, Moderna received $176 million from the US government to develop an mRNA-based vaccine that could be used to treat bird flu in humans.

Glatter said the development of avian flu vaccines “is essential at this time in light of the recent death,” and when approved, he believes the patients most at risk of adverse outcomes — those with lung disease and cardiac, chronic kidney diseases. , cancer patients and those with autoimmune diseases, should be the initial recipients. Then, it should be expanded to lower-risk patients, he said.

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For now, the best way to protect yourself from people is to get vaccinated against the seasonal flu. Vaccination against seasonal influenza “reduces the potential for a human being co-infected with human and bird influenza virus. It also reduces the possibility of spreading human influenza strains to animals such as pigs.”

This ultimately reduces the chances of a “restocking event”.