Then, three healthy ferrets were placed in the same enclosures with three of the sick animals. These animals could touch, nose and lick the sick animals, and all of them became ill.Next, the CDC tested airborne transmission by putting three healthy ferrets into an enclosure where they could breathe the same air as sick animals but couldn’t touch them. In her lab, ferrets with previous exposures to seasonal flu strains didn’t get as sick when exposed to new flu viruses compared to those with no prior exposure to seasonal strains. How much help we might get from past exposures to flu viruses is difficult to predict, however, which is why vaccination would still be important to tune up our immunity. They never spread the virus to any of the other animals in the facility — including themselves.

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