A United Nations food agency warned that the continued spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus is an unprecedented food security risk that requires a coordinated global response. In a briefing held on

New research suggests that past exposure to seasonal flu viruses may help protect people from severe illness caused by the H5N1 avian flu virus. Scientists at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that older adults who were exposed to flu viruses circulating before 1968 were more likely to have antibodies that recognize H5N1.

The rapid spread of the highly infectious avian flu virus H5N1 has reached an “unprecedented” scale, wiping out hundreds of millions of birds worldwide and increasingly spilling over into mammals, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned on Monday.