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| Waste-water monitoring for A-strain Seasonal flu. Looks like we are nearing the peak. |
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| Case loading by state. Not so good for Michigan |
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| Flu strains in 2024/2025 US cases that have been "fingerprinted" |
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Flu strains that WHO recommended for Northern Hemisphere. Recent research suggests that re-immunizing with identical strain "blunts" body's immune response. |
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| Avian flu (H5) detected in wastewater monitoring. Purple dots are "Positive" |
Okay, so, if reimmunising blunts the response, how long is the effect valid for in a healthy human? Tetanus should be refreshed here every 10 years, how long will it be for an influenza strain?
ReplyDeleteI understand that this reply will not answer your question as you asked it.
DeleteThere are two hypothesis for the muting effect. One hypothesis is that re-using exactly the same strain over-trains the immune system so there is less cross-resistance to similar-but-not-identical strains. The other hypothesis is that repeated exposures "convince" our immune system that the pathogen is a ubiquitous organism like the microbiological soup we are swimming in.
In the US, the simplest work-around would be to alternate egg-based vaccines and mammalian cell cultured vaccines because they often have different "strains" in their formulations. That presumes that you can tolerate egg-based vaccines and that the manufacturers continue to used different strains in the two different technologies.
Colloquial of course, but the flu season this year seems particularly bad right now. Any number of people at my place of employment have been knocked flat (almost to pneumonia levels) with it.
ReplyDeleteJoe just for fun look up the rate of vaccination for the flu and flu cases.
ReplyDeleteAn effective vaccine would show as vaccination rate climbs the rate of infection would level off and eventually fall.
Also note due to production using eggs that their BEST GUESS of what NEXT YEARS Flu variant will be the primary flu virus to defend against.
Guess who has never gotten the flu shot since retiring from the Military.
Live culture fermented foods like Kimchee is my go-to for feeling a little out of sorts and despite working in a Hospital and EMS was often the only one in the section that didn't get the crud.
The gut is almost 70-80% of our immune system.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279395/