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sciguy52 t1_j9x5j9q wrote

Maybe a little but it will be really small. Current human yearly flu includes H1N1 which is in the vaccine. So H5N1 has an N1 in it which might allow a small amount of cross reactivity. BUT the N1 in our vaccine is not designed to target the N1 in h5N1 which will be different, probably a lot different. Think of it this way, when we have H1N1 viruses dominate a few years in a row you need a new vaccine each year AND the H1N1 variants are not hugely different from one another as the evolutionary change is small from year to year. The N1 in H5N1 is going to be a lot different comparatively. So a tiny bit of immune response is better than none, but if H5N1 turns into a very infectious virus for people with high mortality, I don't think that tiny bit of immunity is going to make much difference. There are a bunch of other bird flu's out there we also keep an eye on like H7N9, H7N7, H5N9 and more and for those we have no immunity, although H5N1 is probably the biggest near term worry due to it widespread infection in birds worldwide right now and some passage into mammals.

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