because the real concern is related to the lungs – Time

The H5N1 avian influenza virus, which caused an epidemic among dairy cattle in the United States, “like all viruses is mutating.” And although the risk that it will spread between humans and might fuel a pandemic is still low, “we must continue to prepare” for the eventuality that it happens. “The real concern is that it might reach human lungs,” because “when it happened in other parts of the world the mortality rate was 25%.” One in 4 infected people has died. This was explained by Robert Califf, head of the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA), speaking to a US Senate commission. US officials, he assured, are working on “plans for tests, antiviral drugs and vaccines” to be used “in case the virus transmits to humans”. From this point of view “we are in an enviable position”, more favorable “than at any other moment in the history of the world”, underlined Califf, according to the English newspaper ‘Daily Mail’.

«Viruses are» relatively simple organisms – he specified – therefore finding a corresponding vaccine», capable of combating them effectively, «is entirely possible in a short period of time», thanks to new technologies. According to American officials, the States can already count on regarding 20 million doses of anti-avian vaccines that correspond well to the current H5N1 virus. A national reserve that might quickly be enriched by another 100 million doses, if necessary. There are also stocks of antiviral drugs such as oseltamivir, the medicine used to treat the only human case confirmed so far in the context of the epidemic that broke out among cows in the US. Work is also being done to develop a vaccine for poultry, and tests indicate that human antivirals work equally well in diseased cattle.