4 ms·
We can avoid it by developing a vaccine and vaccinating everyone. It would no longer be endemic in the population by the next generation. If there are no suscep
by CydeWeys 7y ago
We can avoid it by developing a vaccine and vaccinating everyone. It would no longer be endemic in the population by the next generation. If there are no susceptible hosts because everyone is immune either from having it or from being vaccinated against it, it will die out like smallpox.
This really hinges on whether the vaccine confers long-term immunity. If it works like the flu vaccine, then being endemic is inevitable.
- maxerickson 7y agoIt's the rapid mutation of the flu virus that undermines the flu vaccine. People often have differing immunity to a flu based on their past exposures. People that had been exposed to the 1950s strain were not hit as hard by the H1N1 that emerged in 1977: https://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01013-15 https://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01013-15
- twic 7y agoIt's worth noting that while we have eradicated smallpox, we have only eradicated smallpox. We have not managed to eradicate any other infectious disease of humans.