What’s the best strategy for staying ahead of emerging flu strains? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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H5N1 is shorthand for the strain of influenza that’s been worrying some public health experts this summer since being found in multiple herds of cows. Now at least two people have turned up positive with a slight variation on the same strain, with no contact with animals, a child and a teenager. Arturo Casadeval, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins, says we need to keep science on the scene.

Casadeval: Medicine is constantly surprised. The answer is the best insurance policy for humanity to spend on science because if you look at the COVID response it was a new virus but within a year there were vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, antivirals and rapid tests that you could do at home. That didn't get developed in a year. That relied on decades of science, the tax money that your mother and your grandmother paid in and supported science paid off for you.              :29

Casadeval says surveillance is especially important as the northern hemisphere enters the winter season, most often associated with outbreaks of influenza. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.