4 ms·
While I do not doubt that this difference exists in general, I am wondering if there is not, to some extent, an issue of terminology here. My understanding is t
by mannykannot 9y ago
While I do not doubt that this difference exists in general, I am wondering if there is not, to some extent, an issue of terminology here. My understanding is that influenza vaccination is somewhat uncertain because antigenic shift and drift produces new, or not-recently-seen, strains. When a bacterium modifies its genome to survive an antimicrobial drug, we call that 'resistance', yet I guess the drug is still as effective as before against unmodified bacteria. While the mechanism is, in detail, different in the two cases, they both involve the pathogen modifying its genome to render the treatment less effective.
Maybe the distinction is because, in the case of influenza, the strain changes are not in response to, and driven by, the treatment? HIV, however, seems to be very effective in mutating specifically in response to every candidate vaccine that has been tried against it.
- m3kw9 9y agoExatly, the resistance due to evolution and new strains by passing vaccines is not very comparable
- ianai 9y agoAs a total amateur, it seems like the bacterial/viruses need only find one way to breakthrough your immunity. Your immune system has many more attack vectors to cover. The bacteria only need to be right once, but the immune system billions.
- alextheparrot 9y agoThe immune system is also layered - a single viral infection won’t necessarily kill you right away. If it does penetrate the initial layers, the immune system will continue adapting and fighting it on each new front. Eventually your entire body might even engage using things like a fever. In this way, it doesn’t need to be right initially billions of times, but capable once at one of many steps.