Why should people get a flu shot every year ? Mr James, an 80 year old man, has
ID: 821061 • Letter: W
Question
Why should people get a flu shot every year ? Mr James, an 80 year old man, has come into the clinic grumbling this morning about having to receive a flu shot every year. You know that viruses have a high mutation rate (change genetically rapidly), which results in the appearance of new proteins on the flu virus's "coat". How does this help explain why Mr James needs to get a flu shot each year?
Why should people get a flu shot every year ? Mr James, an 80 year old man, has come into the clinic grumbling this morning about having to receive a flu shot every year. You know that viruses have a high mutation rate (change genetically rapidly), which results in the appearance of new proteins on the flu virus's "coat". How does this help explain why Mr James needs to get a flu shot each year?
Explanation / Answer
We shouls get a flu shot every year due to following reasons: -
1.Viruses mutate very quickly. As they move through a population, passing from individual to individual, they change to bypass the immune system defenses and environmental conditions and sometimes they just make random changes from imperfect replications.
2.Many viruses will be almost completely genetically different from their parent or grandparent viruses. The flu shot we get each year has been developed to contain the three types of currently active flu viruses determined by epidemiologists to be most likely spreading in the next flu season.
3.These are rarely the same viruses year to year because the prior year's viruses have almost always mutated to new forms before they circle around again the following year.
=> When Mr. James take a flu shot, his body reacts and produces antibodies in the blood that fight off those particular flu viruses.The problem is that each flu season brings a slightly (or greatly) changed flu virus that the last year's antibodies are usually not very effective in fighting.
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