3 ms·

Hey, I can't seem to get a straight answer to this question, I've been asking doctors for over a decade though If everyone takes the flu vaccine and wipes out

Hey, I can't seem to get a straight answer to this question, I've been asking doctors for over a decade though If everyone takes the flu vaccine and wipes out that strain for the season, won't we just get a different strain of flu circulating for the year?

woodruffw 4y ago
I am not a doctor, but my lay understanding is that this is ones of the reasons why we have multivalent vaccines. "Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good," etc.
vidarh 4y ago
If we do, that'd be good news because it'd mean possibility for consistently getting a better match with still extant strains by the vaccines (each year there are efforts to pick which strains to protect against based on prevalence, any reduction in strains improves odds) and/or might make it viable to produce and distribute a larger number of simpler vaccines ("First, returning to vaccines with two IAV strains and a B/Victoria strain could increase the available doses for global distribution (from ~500 million QIV doses to ~700 million doses of a trivalent vaccine9)" [3]). Note that there's a possibility that a couple of flu strains may have gone extinct due to reduced transmission during covid [1] [2] [3], so we have a chance at getting direct data on this over the next few years if those strains don't make a reappearance. [1] https://www.livescience.com/flu-virus-types-extinct-covid-19.html https://www.livescience.com/flu-virus-types-extinct-covid-19... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36177871/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36177871/ [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00642-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00642-4
LarryMullins 4y ago
They already have to formulate a new flu shot twice a year because of how fast the flu changes. And the efficacy of the new flu shot each time ranges between 10-50%, so even if everybody got the shot, it wouldn't stop the flu.

woodruffw 4y ago

I am not a doctor, but my lay understanding is that this is ones of the reasons why we have multivalent vaccines. "Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good," etc.

vidarh 4y ago

If we do, that'd be good news because it'd mean possibility for consistently getting a better match with still extant strains by the vaccines (each year there are efforts to pick which strains to protect against based on prevalence, any reduction in strains improves odds) and/or might make it viable to produce and distribute a larger number of simpler vaccines ("First, returning to vaccines with two IAV strains and a B/Victoria strain could increase the available doses for global distribution (from ~500 million QIV doses to ~700 million doses of a trivalent vaccine9)" [3]). Note that there's a possibility that a couple of flu strains may have gone extinct due to reduced transmission during covid [1] [2] [3], so we have a chance at getting direct data on this over the next few years if those strains don't make a reappearance. [1] https://www.livescience.com/flu-virus-types-extinct-covid-19.html https://www.livescience.com/flu-virus-types-extinct-covid-19... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36177871/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36177871/ [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00642-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00642-4

LarryMullins 4y ago

They already have to formulate a new flu shot twice a year because of how fast the flu changes. And the efficacy of the new flu shot each time ranges between 10-50%, so even if everybody got the shot, it wouldn't stop the flu.