Influenza question

[NutzyClutz]

Every year they come out with new flu vaccine, because the old virus adapted to old one?

Could we predict what the virus would adapt to, and make the vaccine for both the original and mutated version. This double whammy stopping the chain?

Or could we have vaccine mutate the virus in a circular pattern?, so virus a, treated mutates to b, and virus b, treated, mutates to a. then we can just give vaccine a&b and stop the chain.

[John Bedtelyon]

There are hundreds of types of the Flu, many strains. What they do is predict which strain will be big for that year and make the flu shot help stop that strain.

It's like meterology, not super accurate but good enough to get a good rough estimate. (I use good and rough together to describe the estimate, I imagine some years their guesses are better than others)

One flu shot for around the country to try to stop hundreds of strains just isn't going to work, but it can help stop a majority of influenza case. I'm not sure of the adaptability of flu strains, but what's big one year doesn't mean it'll be big the next year, hence the new flu shot.

JMB