Health
Robots Are Taking Over Your Surgery (and You Should Be Excited)
Sept. 26, 2023 – On her flight to Atlanta, Robin Pollack nibbled gummy bears and sipped a cranberry juice cocktail. It had been a week since she’d gotten robotic surgery to remove a cancerous stomach tumor at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and she was heading home – feeling surprisingly good.
The surgery required five small cuts. “I now have four little dots and a 2-inch slit that he superglued shut,” Pollack said. “After surgery, I woke up hungry.”
She was out of bed and walking in a day, and out and about town with her husband within a week, enjoying crème brûlée and eggs Florentine.
“I have not had one bit of pain since,” she said 2 weeks after surgery. “I have not taken pain medication, not even one Tylenol. I walked 2 miles yesterday.”
A better post-operative quality of life is one perk of robotic surgery, said surgical oncologist Naruhiko Ikoma, MD, who performed Pollack’s procedure.
There are pluses for the surgeon, as well. “I feel more precise in terms of dissection and in suturing,” said Ikoma. “In conventional open operations, surgeons use instruments. … In robotic surgery, surgeons feel like they’re operating with their own fingers with precise tips.”
Robotic surgery, or robot-assisted surgery, is more than 20 years old, but experts believe it is now poised for growth. Propelling the technology forward are the very advantages that Pollack and Ikoma describe: improved accuracy, shorter recovery times, and less pain.
About 644,000 robotic surgeries were performed in the United States in 2021, and that figure is expected to approach 1 million by 2028. Millions more have taken place worldwide. The global market hit $6.3 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $26.8 billion in 10 years.
Robot-assisted devices are FDA-cleared across many specialties. For prostate removals and hysterectomies, the use of surgical robots is now more common than not. It’s also rapidly growing in bariatric surgery and hernia repair, and has increased steadily in hip and knee replacements. Several surgical teams have pioneered robot-assisted kidney transplants, and recently the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported the first robotic liver transplant in the U.S.
The most widely used robotic system in the U.S. is Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci. The FDA first approved a da Vinci in 2000 and has cleared newer models since then. Today, more than 7,500 da Vinci surgical systems are in use in 69 countries across six continents.
Dozens of other companies have entered the game. Advances in materials science are driving soft, flexible designs that can navigate winding pathways or operate on some of the body’s most delicate tissues.
Auris Health’s Monarch, a flexible robotic endoscopic system, enters through the mouth into the trachea and bronchial passages to examine potentially cancerous tissue in the lungs. The platform recently earned a urological clearance for kidney stone removal. Other flexible robots enter the rectum and travel through intestines, as for colonoscopy. Still others snake through the nose to reach the brain, or the thigh’s femoral vein to get to the heart.
An upgrade of Stryker’s Mako robot, currently used for hip and knee replacements, will enable its use in spine and shoulder surgery and could launch as early as next year. (The doctors interviewed for this article are not promoting or endorsing any products mentioned.)
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence, or AI, is letting researchers and developers make robots more autonomous, capable of performing surgical subtasks or even entire surgical procedures.
“It is an exciting time,” said Michael Yip, PhD, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory, at the University of California San Diego. “The diversity of robotic technologies is really widening exponentially.”
Benefits for Patients
Data shows that robotic surgery can help reduce bleeding, scarring, and recovery time, and it allows for shorter hospital stays, compared to traditional surgery.
One of the most striking benefits: Many patients, like Pollack, do not need opioids – or any painkillers, for that matter. That’s remarkable when you consider the norm.
For kidney transplant, “it’s 100% narcotic use after an open transplant,” said Thomas Pshak, MD, a robotic kidney and liver transplant surgeon at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital. Open surgery patients go home with as much as a week’s supply of opioids, and sometimes need morphine or oxycodone in an IV after surgery.
Robotic surgery patients heal much faster, returning to work and normal activities within a few weeks, vs. the recommended 8 weeks after open kidney transplant.
“A painless kidney transplant seems like science fiction, but here we are,” Pshak said.
He uses a da Vinci surgical robot system with four slender arms, each about the size of a pencil, that hold surgical instruments and a high-definition camera. During surgery, he sits at a computer console a few feet away, looking through binoculars that provide a highly magnified 3D view of the operation site. With both hands on joystick-type controls, he guides the arms into the cuts to perform “delicate, precise movements,” such as suturing the new kidney to blood vessels. Foot pedals engage and disengage the robot arms.
Pshak performed UCHealth’s first robotic kidney transplant in 2021 and has done more than a dozen since then, and even more donor kidney removals, using the robot. With robotic kidney transplant, “the biggest incision is about 2 inches, near the bellybutton,” he said. For context, a traditional open kidney transplant involves a 10- to 12-inch cut.
Robotics may improve access to surgery as well. One-third of patients waiting for a donated kidney have body mass indexes over 35. The higher BMI can mean longer, deeper cuts, increasing the risk of complications and negative outcomes. The less invasive robotic procedure could make kidney transplant possible for these patients.
Benefits for Doctors
In a sense, robotics give surgeons superhuman skills. The robot can correct for any tremor in the surgeon’s hand and lets a surgeon view hard-to-see creases, moving the camera and small tools into places the human hand can’t reach.
“I can set the [robot] arm movements to move at one-tenth of my normal hand movement,” Pshak said. “That just allows for some insane accuracy.”
In spinal surgery, robotics minimize the misplacement of a screw. That means “a lower revision rate – having to go back and remove and replace a misplaced screw,” said Mohamad Bydon, MD, a neurosurgeon and clinician-scientist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, where they’ve been performing robotic neurosurgeries since 2018.
Bydon was the lead author of a study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings that reported that out of 402 screws placed in 77 patients who had robot-assisted spinal surgery, none had to be redone after surgery.
Other advantages, Bydon noted, include the ability to map out the surgery in advance, and sub-millimeter accuracy around a patient’s nerves and spinal cord. “It preserves muscles, tendons, and ligaments,” he said.
Corey Walker, MD, is a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles who performed minimally invasive robotic back surgery on a high school football player last year after the player fractured his spine in three spots. The robots collect data that is fed back into AI algorithms to improve planning and accuracy. “The robot is not just giving us a technical advantage,” Walker noted, “but also a data advantage.”
After surgery, the football player was back to normal activities and training again within weeks instead of the usual 6 months.
With younger patients, Walker said, it’s important to preserve their longevity and avoid injury to the muscles surrounding the spine. Robotic procedures “leave as little of a footprint on the structure of the spine as possible.”
Robotic Surgery: What Patients and Doctors Should Know
In the United States, academic medical institutions and hospitals have developed their own credentialing paths. Many robotic surgeons train in conventional surgical techniques and later move into robotic procedures, taking web-based and in-person courses with equipment manufacturers, practicing on sample tissues, in virtual reality simulations, and on inanimate objects (like picking up small items or peeling tape from a surface).
Some surgeons and medical centers offer robotic training for those outside their institution. At the Ohio State University College of Medicine, interested surgeons from around the world can visit, observing existing and emerging robotic procedures for $500 a day.
“The biggest challenge with robotics is that it is so automated, it sometimes takes away from the residents’ ability to learn the anatomy,” Walker said. “Our challenge is to still be able to teach residents the anatomy and to not become reliant on the technology.”
Patients should look into a hospital’s history with robotics and ask how many procedures their institution and surgeon have performed, as Pollack did before her surgery. Not all surgeries are suitable for robotics; patients and surgeons should discuss pros and cons.
Challenges
Robotic surgery is not without controversy. A 2021 review of 50 randomized trials comparing robot-assisted surgeries with laparoscopy and/or open surgery for belly or pelvic surgery found little difference in outcomes.
Some older studies suggest risks or potentially worse outcomes for some procedures. In 2018, a New England Journal of Medicine multicenter study led by MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers reported that, in women with early cervical cancer, laparoscopic or robotic minimally invasive radical hysterectomy was linked to lower rates of disease-free survival and overall survival, when compared to open abdominal radical hysterectomy. And in 2021, the FDA cautioned against robotically assisted surgical device use for mastectomy.
Still, scores of other recent studies back up robot-assisted surgery’s benefits.
One drawback: It’s not available everywhere. “You have to be at a place that is willing to invest in it and that believes in it as a technology,” Walker said.
For certain specialties, the high cost (the da Vinci’s price tag is reported to be $2 million) may not outweigh the return on investment, Yip said , stalling growth.
According to Francis Sutter, DO, chief of cardiac surgery at Lankenau Medical Center, part of Main Line Health, and a longtime robotic surgeon, the number of robotic heart surgeries has fallen in the past 10 years.
“There’s not a market for it,” he said. “I hope there will be more interest from cardiac surgeons in the years ahead.”
What’s Next?
Semi-autonomous devices that perform surgical tasks – like holding a clamp in place or removing damaged tissues – could start to emerge clinically in the next 10 years, Yip said.
Like a self-driving car, they use sensors to localize with respect to anatomy and map the environment.
Someday, we may see fully autonomous robots capable of performing an entire procedure. At Johns Hopkins last year, surgeons tested a new robotic technology called Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) that visualizes and plans its next surgical move almost in real time. They successfully practiced with it in four experiments, sewing together pig intestines, tissue that’s soft, pliable, and difficult to operate on.
For hemorrhage control, Yip said, “the computer recognizes blood and will immediately try to suck up the blood, find the source, and clamp it.” Such robots could be airdropped during, say, natural disasters to stabilize injured people. The technology could also open the door to remote “telesurgery.”
Still, fears that robots will replace surgeons altogether are inflated, experts say. For the foreseeable future, robots will enhance the work of the surgeon, not replace it, Bydon, of the Mayo Clinic, said.
May 10, 2024 – When we’re young, we take our macula for granted. At the center of our retina – the deepest layer of the eye that’s chock-full of photoreceptors and that confers color to our world – the macula is like a high-resolution camera. As light hits our eyes, the retina’s macula recasts our world in a bloom of color with astoundingly high visual sharpness.
But as you age, your vision dulls. What once stood out sharply becomes foggy, like condensation on a windowpane. After some time, a coal-black smudge or cloudy circular area begins to affect your central vision.
This effective blind spot widens over time if left untreated. What remains is a “macular hole” in the center of your retina.
This unfortunate series of events marks the advanced stage of age-related macular degeneration, a dangerous retinal disease that affects about 20 million people in the U.S., and nearly 200 million people worldwide.
And it’s not getting better. Estimates are that by 2040, the disease may affect nearly 300 million people worldwide. We are very limited in our ability to treat or prevent it. Read on for what to know.
First, What Causes Age-Related Macular Degeneration?
AMD’s causes are varied, and whether it will affect you is mostly determined by age and genetics, said Marco Alejandro Gonzalez, MD, an ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal specialist in Delray Beach, FL.
Because of the different cocktails that we have in terms of our genetic makeup, some people’s photoreceptor cells in the macula “basically start to shut down,” he said.
AMD’s development involves over 30 genes, and if you have a first-degree relative – parent, sibling, child – who has the disease, you’re three times more likely to get it, too.
Gonzalez explained how the expected rise to 300 million cases by 2040 is due mostly to improved diagnostic tools, along with the fact that the world is getting older and living longer. (Usually, an optometrist can detect signs of AMD during a routine eye exam.)
Eye experts still struggle to stop AMD’s most harmful sign – the cause of those muddy, milky, or even coal-colored circles in your central vision: geographic atrophy.
Geographic atrophy can occur in either of the two forms of age-related AMD: “dry” AMD and “wet” AMD.
Nearly every case of AMD begins as the dry kind, affecting 80% to 90% of AMD patients.
Retinal disease expert Tiarnán Keenan, MD, PhD, offered a vivid image of geographic atrophy for those who have dry AMD.
“As time passes, the circular patches of GA expand like a brushfire, taking more and more vision with it, often to the point of legal blindness,” he said.
A researcher in the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications at the National Eye Institute, Keenan recently led a study that tested the efficacy of the antibiotic minocycline in slowing geographic atrophy expansion in dry AMD. The study operated on the grounds that the body’s immune system could be at play in developing the disease.
When your body’s immune system is overactive, microglial cells (central nervous system immune cells) can get into the sub-retinal space and possibly eat away at the macula and its sensitive photoreceptors.
Though minocycline had been shown to reduce inflammation and microglial activity in the eye in diabetic retinopathy, it didn’t slow the expansion of geographic atrophy or vision loss in patients with dry AMD during Keenan’s study.
When asked if microglial activity could have very little to do with the atrophy expansion, Keenan said it’s something to consider: “Maybe microglia are just there as bystanders clearing up the debris … so inhibiting them is less likely to slow down progression.”
In future drug trials, “maybe it’s possible the minocycline or another approach to target microglia would be helpful, but it would be needed in combination with some other therapy and be ineffective by itself,” he said.
Two Sides of the Same Disease
In dry AMD, Gonzalez compares macular degeneration to the loss of pixels on a screen. “Some of those pixels burn out … and that’s the way you lose vision classically in the dry form.”
Wet AMD is a more progressive form of the disease. It causes abrupt vision loss due to abnormal blood vessel growth.
“If you don’t treat wet AMD quickly, it’s game over,” warned Gonzalez. “Wet macular degeneration is the quicker process of vision loss because these blood vessels wreak havoc.” These new blood vessels bleed, causing fluid to build in the macula, which ultimately leads to scarring.
Gonzalez shed light on why wet AMD develops. “The wet form, for some reason, is the body’s last-ditch effort to try to kind of ‘help’ a dying macula. … When these blood vessels start to grow under the retina, they quickly destroy the architecture of the macula.”
Stopping the Bleeding in Wet AMD
Though wet AMD is rarer, it’s more treatable than dry AMD. Signs and symptoms can be eased with various therapies injected into the eye.
Putting it simply, Gonzalez said these therapies to treat wet AMD “all basically do the same thing. They make these new blood vessels regress temporarily before they cause damage to the macula.”
The injected medication clears away those blood vessels and restores the architecture of the macula. People can recover some vision in this way, but it’s only a temporary tune-up, and shots must be given as often as once a month.
“Degeneration of the cells is still the main problem. You’re not stopping that. But degeneration itself is a lot slower than actual vision loss associated with these blood vessels.”
The Struggle in Developing New Treatments
According to Keenan, “nobody has been able to stop geographic atrophy from happening” in either form of AMD. “So, that’s the main work in the field with trials.”
In December 2023, the FDA approved two new drugs: Syfovre and Izervay, both of which only slow geographic atrophy. Degeneration still happens, regardless.
Keenan explained how these two new drugs are “complement inhibitors … given by injection into the eye once a month or so.”
“Complement” refers to the body’s complement pathway, a trigger that activates a cascade of proteins in enhancing immune response.
Clinical trials showed Syfovre slowing the rate of geographic atrophy by up to 22% over 2 years, and Izervay up to 14% over 1 year.
Though these drugs are a new weapon against this troublesome affliction, they aren’t without their complications.
“Anytime you give an injection in the eye, there’s always the risk of an infection because you’re introducing something from the outside. So that’s the biggest risk,” explained Gonzalez.
An infection is uncommon, but potentially devastating, as you can lose your eye altogether. There’s also the chance of a damaging reaction to the shot.
“You have to pick and choose your patients,” said Gonzalez. “Not everybody is a good candidate for those new shots … and the patient is never going to see better. … It’s a harder sell than the ones for wet AMD.”
A Common Protective Measure
Keenan and Gonzalez both have a fair degree of confidence in reducing the risk of AMD with vitamin therapy.
As a bit of background on how vitamins were found to act as a sort of preventive measure, Gonzalez said, “In the early and late ‘90s, there were series of studies which were called the age-related eye disease studies.” These are now referred to as AREDS 1 and AREDS 2.
Researchers proved that a certain cocktail of vitamins slowed down degeneration. The most is a combo of antioxidants: vitamins C and E and lutein and zeaxanthin, all of which are in the AREDS 2 formula.
People who took these vitamins had a lower chance of losing their vision over the next 2 to 5 years. “[The combo] seems to be complementary and additive … with a combined treatment effect of 55% to 60%, an excellent safety record, and very low cost,” Keenan said.
Gonzalez recommends the AREDS 2 formula of vitamins to every patient of his. “It’s such an easy thing to take, and the downside is minimal.”
Unfortunately, if your genes make you more likely to have the condition, a change in diet or vitamin use could have no effect.
Dire? Possibly. But not all is lost in this fight.
Vigilance with AMD and What to Do Next if You’re Diagnosed
Gonzalez is adamant in educating his patients before time has run out on treating AMD. Recognition is key. “The most common reason a lot of these people get to me ‘too late’ is they don’t realize there’s a problem.”
He explained a typical scenario: “Let’s say you have macular degeneration in both eyes at different stages. One of your eyes starts developing wet macular degeneration … so the better eye takes over and you may not notice there’s a problem.”
Even after a patient is diagnosed with AMD, they usually see a specialist only twice a year. Gonzalez often tells his patients to cover one of their eyes to make sure their vision is intact in both eyes. “You’ll be able to pick up on subtle differences” in each eye, he said.
This type of self-care and vigilance can be the difference between successfully living with and treating the disease for the rest of your life, and trying to get help when it’s simply too late.
For wet AMD, as mentioned before, a round of injections is basically what everyone does. Without quick, invasive treatment, the point of no return approaches rapidly.
May 16, 2024 – Multiple U.S. agencies are working to contain the recent bird flu outbreak among cattle to prevent further spread to humans (beyond one case reported in early April) and use what we learned before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to keep farm workers and the general public safe.
Fingers crossed, the bird flu will be contained and peter out. Or the outbreak could continue to spread among dairy cattle and other animals, threatening the health and livelihoods of farmers and others who work with livestock.
Or the virus could change in a way that makes it easier to infect and spread among people. If this happens, the worst-case scenario could be a new influenza pandemic.
With so many unknowns, WebMD brought together experts from four federal agencies to talk prevention, monitoring, and what the “what ifs” of bird flu might look like.
Communication with the public “about what we know, what we don’t know, and ways you and your family can stay safe is a priority for us at CDC,” said Nirav D. Shah, MD, JD, the CDC’s principal deputy director. “We at the federal level are responding, and we want the public to be following along.”
People should consult the websites for the CDC, FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) for updates.
It is essential to not only stay informed, but to seek trusted sources of information, Shah said during “Bird Flu 2024 – What You Need to Know,” an online briefing jointly sponsored by the CDC and WebMD.
An ‘Experimental Hamburger’
If one take-home message emerged from the event, it was that the threat to the general public remains low.
The retail milk supply is safe, although consuming raw or unpasteurized milk is not recommended. “While commercial milk supply is safe, we strongly advise against drinking raw milk,” said Donald A. Prater, DVM, acting director for the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
As for other foods, thoroughly cooked eggs are less risky than raw eggs, and the nation’s beef supply remains free of the virus as well.
For years, federal inspectors have purchased and tested meat at retail stores, said Eric Deeble, DVM, USDA deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Congressional Relations. So far, H5N1, the virus behind bird flu, has not been detected in beef.
The USDA took testing a step further and recently cooked ground beef from dairy cows in their lab. Using what Deeble described as an “experimental hamburger,” the agency showed cooking beef to 165 F or higher kills the virus if it ever becomes necessary.
The federal government now requires all cattle be tested and be free of bird flu virus before crossing any state lines. The government is also reimbursing farmers for veterinary care and loss of business related to the outbreak, and supply personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves, masks, and face shields to workers.
Vaccination Not Recommended Now
Federal scientists know enough about H5N1 virus to create vaccines against it quickly if the need arises. It’s more about planning ahead at this point. “Vaccines are not part of our response right now,” said David Boucher, PhD, director of infectious diseases preparedness and response at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
If the virus changes and becomes a bigger threat to people, “we have the building blocks to produce a vaccine,” Boucher added.
An event attendee asked if the seasonal flu shot offers any protection. “Unfortunately, the flu shot you got last year does not provide great protection from the avian flu,” Shah responded. “It might do a little bit … but that is the vaccine for seasonal flu. This is something more novel.”
Treatments Stockpiled and Ready
Antiviral medications, which if given early in the course of bird flu infection could shorten the severity or duration of illness, are available now, Shah said. The dairy farmer who was infected with bird flu earlier this year responded to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) treatment, for example.
When it comes to bird flu symptoms, the fact that the only infected person reported so far this year developed pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis, is interesting, Shah said. Officials would have expected to see more typical seasonal flu symptoms, he added.
“Influenza is not a new virus,” Boucher said. “With this strain of influenza, we are not seeing any genetic markers associated with resistance to antivirals. That means the antivirals we take for seasonal influenza would also be available if needed to treat H5N1.”
ASPR has stockpiled Tamiflu and three other antivirals. “We do have tens of millions of courses that can be distributed around the country if we need them,” he added.
“Influenza is an enemy we know well,” Boucher said. That is why “we have antivirals ready to go now and many types of PPE.”
Science in Action
The feds intend to stay on the case. They will continue to monitor emergency department visits, lab test orders, and wastewater samples for any changes suggesting a human pandemic risk is growing.
“While we’ve learned a great deal, there are still many things we do not know,” Deeble said.
Shah added, “As in any outbreak, this is an evolving situation and things can change. What you are seeing now is science in action.”
For the latest updates on bird flu in the United States, visit the CDC’s H5N1 Bird Flu: Current Situation Summary website.
May 16, 2024 – Multiple U.S. agencies are working to contain the recent bird flu outbreak among cattle to prevent further spread to humans (beyond one case reported in early April) and use what we learned before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to keep farm workers and the general public safe.
Fingers crossed, the bird flu will be contained and peter out. Or the outbreak could continue to spread among dairy cattle and other animals, threatening the health and livelihoods of farmers and others who work with livestock.
Or the virus could change in a way that makes it easier to infect and spread among people. If this happens, the worst-case scenario could be a new influenza pandemic.
With so many unknowns, WebMD brought together experts from four federal agencies to talk prevention, monitoring, and what the “what ifs” of bird flu might look like.
Communication with the public “about what we know, what we don’t know, and ways you and your family can stay safe is a priority for us at CDC,” said Nirav D. Shah, MD, JD, the CDC’s principal deputy director. “We at the federal level are responding, and we want the public to be following along.”
People should consult the websites for the CDC, FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) for updates.
It is essential to not only stay informed, but to seek trusted sources of information, Shah said during “Bird Flu 2024 – What You Need to Know,” an online briefing jointly sponsored by the CDC and WebMD.
An ‘Experimental Hamburger’
If one take-home message emerged from the event, it was that the threat to the general public remains low.
The retail milk supply is safe, although consuming raw or unpasteurized milk is not recommended. “While commercial milk supply is safe, we strongly advise against drinking raw milk,” said Donald A. Prater, DVM, acting director for the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
As for other foods, thoroughly cooked eggs are less risky than raw eggs, and the nation’s beef supply remains free of the virus as well.
For years, federal inspectors have purchased and tested meat at retail stores, said Eric Deeble, DVM, USDA deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Congressional Relations. So far, H5N1, the virus behind bird flu, has not been detected in beef.
The USDA took testing a step further and recently cooked ground beef from dairy cows in their lab. Using what Deeble described as an “experimental hamburger,” the agency showed cooking beef to 165 F or higher kills the virus if it ever becomes necessary.
The federal government now requires all cattle be tested and be free of bird flu virus before crossing any state lines. The government is also reimbursing farmers for veterinary care and loss of business related to the outbreak, and supply personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves, masks, and face shields to workers.
Vaccination Not Recommended Now
Federal scientists know enough about H5N1 virus to create vaccines against it quickly if the need arises. It’s more about planning ahead at this point. “Vaccines are not part of our response right now,” said David Boucher, PhD, director of infectious diseases preparedness and response at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
If the virus changes and becomes a bigger threat to people, “we have the building blocks to produce a vaccine,” Boucher added.
An event attendee asked if the seasonal flu shot offers any protection. “Unfortunately, the flu shot you got last year does not provide great protection from the avian flu,” Shah responded. “It might do a little bit … but that is the vaccine for seasonal flu. This is something more novel.”
Treatments Stockpiled and Ready
Antiviral medications, which if given early in the course of bird flu infection could shorten the severity or duration of illness, are available now, Shah said. The dairy farmer who was infected with bird flu earlier this year responded to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) treatment, for example.
When it comes to bird flu symptoms, the fact that the only infected person reported so far this year developed pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis, is interesting, Shah said. Officials would have expected to see more typical seasonal flu symptoms, he added.
“Influenza is not a new virus,” Boucher said. “With this strain of influenza, we are not seeing any genetic markers associated with resistance to antivirals. That means the antivirals we take for seasonal influenza would also be available if needed to treat H5N1.”
ASPR has stockpiled Tamiflu and three other antivirals. “We do have tens of millions of courses that can be distributed around the country if we need them,” he added.
“Influenza is an enemy we know well,” Boucher said. That is why “we have antivirals ready to go now and many types of PPE.”
Science in Action
The feds intend to stay on the case. They will continue to monitor emergency department visits, lab test orders, and wastewater samples for any changes suggesting a human pandemic risk is growing.
“While we’ve learned a great deal, there are still many things we do not know,” Deeble said.
Shah added, “As in any outbreak, this is an evolving situation and things can change. What you are seeing now is science in action.”
For the latest updates on bird flu in the United States, visit the CDC’s H5N1 Bird Flu: Current Situation Summary website.
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