How worried should we be about avian flu?
The Briefing Room
00:00
Is It Possible to Transmit Bird Flu to Pigs?
There have been cases of transmission to pigs who tend not to be kept in the same way as mink. While it's quite easy to ban the mink industry, it's pretty difficult to place major restrictions on the raising of pigs. We know there is the possibility that directly from avian influenza viruses you can get infections of people. But a second option is that, unavian influenza virus would make it into a pig where it then mixes its genes with influenza viruses from pigs. Then you get a reassortent virus that may also be able to infect humans and that has happened in the past.
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