Older adults may have better immunity to the bird flu virus

If H5N1 avian influenza virus results in a pandemic, older people may have better immunity than younger people due to previous exposure to closely related viruses.

In previous clusters of H5N1 cases, it was older people as well Less susceptible to infection with the virus than younger individuals, so scientists hypothesized that the first group may have stronger immunity to the virus than those who were younger. This may be because older people are more exposed to influenza strains closely related to H5N1, called H1N1 and H2N2.