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How comes, then, that every year there is a flu vaccine ready before the season starts?
by Joker_vD 7y ago
How comes, then, that every year there is a flu vaccine ready before the season starts?
- OatMilkLatte 7y ago(Warning: very layperson understanding below) There are many variants of the flu. Most of them are well-enough understood to vaccinate against, and most of those have an already-tested-and-approved vaccine. The yearly flu vaccine is a combination of those vaccines for the strains the public health experts think are going to be an issue that season. Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they don't, and we have a bad flu season (see also: this year).
- cbhl 7y agoThey start making the flu vaccine the year before. It takes six to nine months, and lots of chicken eggs. Here's a Planet Money rerun that talks about how they make the regular flu vaccine: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812943907/episode-977-wheres-the-vaccine https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812943907/episode-977-wheres-... Transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/812943907 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/812943907