• Question: How do scientists know how to make a flu vaccine if viruses can be different every year?

    Asked by T-REX to Arthur, Clare, Daniel, David, Tora on 11 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Clare Harding

      Clare Harding answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      This is a really great question,

      The virus is changing the whole time, we cant predict exactly how it will change or exactly which type will be most successful each year, but what we can do is test which type of flu virus is making people sick all over the world.

      For a little while I worked in one of these labs in Mongolia, testing the types of virus that were affecting people there, which was an amazing thing to do! It means I got to live in Ulaanbaatar for two months, just goes to show where science can take you!

      Anyway, every year the labs all over the world tell the WHO (World Health Organisation) and the scientist there can look at what flu strains are very common and from that, they can predict which ones the vaccine should protect against.

      They dont always get it right, since they are trying to predict the future, but generally the vaccine will protect you against the common strains that year.

    • Photo: Arthur Dyer

      Arthur Dyer answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Good Question!

      Basically it’s a bit of guess work.

      The influenza (flu) viruses selected each year are based on which strains are circulating and how they are spreading.

      There are 141 national flu labs in 111 countries that send information about every case they see to the World Health Organization (WHO) then they make a forecast (sort of like how we predict the weather forecasts) and then they make the vaccines in chicken eggs!

    • Photo: Tora Smulders-Srinivasan

      Tora Smulders-Srinivasan answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      That’s a great question! Like the others said, it’s basically just predicting what might happen.

      I remember there was a big scare about swine flu a few years ago that then didn’t actually affect as many people as they were worried about. So there may have been vaccines that weren’t necessary, but that’s much better than the other way around! 🙂

      Flu is a real worry as it kills many people every year. Right now they seem to be giving the flu vaccine to all young school aged children in the UK — at least my 4 year old & 8 year old got vaccinated in school — which I’m thrilled about!

    • Photo: Daniel Parsons

      Daniel Parsons answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      That is a great question!

      Like the others said, it is a bit of educated guesswork and tracking strains across the world and predict which ones will take off and spread.

      It is not 100% perfect but very important work. For example, Spanish influenza in 1918 killed around 100 million people, about 5% of the world’s population. Avian influenza has been in the news over the past few years and the big worry is that this could follow a similar path to Spanish influenza, but there are lots of scientists developing vaccines for these sorts of developments too.

Comments