Chandigarh: Bad news for those who got themselves vaccinated against swine flu for the season as this will provide little protection against the present strain of the virus, which has changed, claim experts. In the absence of this protective guard, the doctors are apprehensive of the rise in the cases this year. Already the city has seen 20 cases in a span of 15 days, including four deaths.
The PGIMER is getting four-five patients on a daily basis, which test positive for the flu. “We are surprised about the occurrence of the flu in this season, which earlier used to be November and January. Moreover, like humans, viruses also adapt and modify to survive. These new viruses have appeared in July, which implies that the flu will occur in all seasons now,” said a doctor at the PGIMER.
It seems the vaccine is off more often than it is on. I’ve wondered whether the vaccines are being introduced too early in the infection’s origins each year and conferring advantage on other strains, so by the time the flu is here, it is a different strain.
If the flu becomes a more constant presence everywhere, it may solve that problem, though it will be even more difficult to predict what will be hitting where. And without a respite from it each year during the warmer seasons, it may get to adapt more perfectly to the human machine, and become more capable at infecting.
1918 could be coming back.
Spread r/K Theory, because those with reduced disgust will not be long for the Apocalypse
[…] Flu To Begin Being Seen In All Seasons […]
False alarm. In a normal environment where the flu depends on human-to-human transmission, it cannot spread if its hosts are too sick to get out of bed. New varieties need a combination of human-, pig-, and bird-flu genes, so they originate only where these three species live in close proximity, giving the rest of the world time to produce vaccines.
1918 was different. The world was at war, with millions of stressed-out men crammed together in trenches, barracks, and troop ships. Feedlots with millions of pigs and geese were set up near the front to provide the soldiers with fresh meat. Three-species germ exchange constantly seeded the human agar with new flu varieties until *kaboom*.