The US government has outlined plans to spend $10 million to stem bird flu infections in farm workers, including on a seasonal flu vaccines programme.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will spend $5m on vaccinating hundreds of thousands of livestock workers, following human bird flu infections on farms in Colorado, Michigan and Texas.
The other $5m will be provided to organisations, such as the National Center for Farmworker Health, to train farm workers on protecting themselves from avian influenza.
The ongoing outbreak of bird flu in the United States has infected poultry flocks in nearly every state since 2022, as well as in 170 dairy herds in 13 states since March this year.
However, according to the CDC's principal director Nirav Shah, the risk to the general public from the virus is still considered to be low.
Though the seasonal flu vaccine does not provide protection from bird flu, Ms Shah said it could cut the risk of farm workers becoming infected with the seasonal flu and avian influenza at the same time.
She said: "Preventing seasonal influenza for these workers, many of whom are also exposed to bird flu, may reduce risks of new strains of influenza emerging."
She added that the CDC was hoping to vaccinate all of the US's 200,000 livestock workers during this year's flu shot season.
Defra has previously said it was monitoring the situation in the US 'closely', adding that it had no reason to suspect the virus was circulating in UK or European cattle.
The UK has had no recent cases of avian influenza in kept poultry, and the risk level from wild birds is 'low'.
