Researchers have discovered that exposure to human seasonal flu may deliver some form of immunity to the H5N1 bird flu that’s currently circulating. Earlier this week, a team of international researchers released information claiming that ferrets exposed to a common seasonal human flu (H1N1) before being exposed to H5N1 acquire some immunity from the seasonal flu.

Ferrets that weren’t exposed to the seasonal flu before being infected with H5N1 had high levels of the virus in their respiratory tissues, as well as detectable virus in their hearts, spleen, liver, and intestines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. 

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times on the research, Webby, the St. Jude researcher, said the work supports other research that has looked at the potential protectiveness of prior exposure to flu viruses.

This could mean that flu vaccines could possibly be propped up as a way to combat the bird flu. Propaganda about their use in bird flu prevention could be forthcoming to increase “vaccine” uptake.

“The biggest take-home message of our data is that prior human seasonal virus infection can provide some level of protection against the lethality of bird flu,” said Seema Lakdawala, a microbiologist at Emory University in Atlanta and one of the study’s researchers.

“It is for sure playing some role in modulating H5N1 disease in humans,” he said, but probably was not the only factor. “After all, many people have severe seasonal H1N1 infections each year despite lots of immunity to the virus from previous H1N1 exposures.”

The CDC has already come out and said that flu shots will lower the risk of bird flu, so this is playing right into the hands of the propaganda.

CDC Says Flu Shots Will Lower Risk Of Bird Flu

The research did say that all adults have immunity from repeated influenza virus infections over their lifetimes, but how previous exposures translate into protection may be strain-dependent and change over time.

What are your thoughts? Will you get a flu shot to help prevent the bird flu? Will big pharma start to push this more heavily?