Influenza A (H1N1) Blog

Posts Tagged ‘vaccine’

1. May 12, 2010

   Contaminated Vaccines

   Although H1N1 is circulating around us at least a little bit before 1918, we passed almost 20 years free of it. In 1957, a line of influenza virus received three genes of an avian virus, among them new HA and NA, and started to be called H2N2. With these new proteins, it did not meet [...]

2. January 22, 2010

   Mutations and the escape from immunity

   If measles is caused by a virus and it can only be caught once in a life time, why do we catch the flu every year?

   When we have the flu, in a few days the body seems to get rid of the virus. The symptoms rarely last for two weeks and, in a higher period; [...]

3. October 16, 2009

   Vaccine against flu: Distribution

   If you think that all problems are solved after you have read all about the long vaccine production, you’re wrong. There is still the issue of distribution:

   As the vaccine manufacturing process is slow and continuous, it is not possible to produce enough doses for everyone. Nowadays, our yearly vaccine production is of 700 to 900 [...]

4. October 10, 2009

   Vaccine against Influenza: Production

   We are in full production phase of vaccines against the Influenza A (H1N1), and some doses are already being distributed in the United States. However, if the virus was already circulating in May, why did it take so long to have the vaccine available? Understand why in this series of posts, beginning with the production [...]

5. September 9, 2009

   Prior immunity and flu

   I received a comment from Paulo Amaral with amazing questions, leading me to advance this post. As follows, you can find the questions and the answer explaining what is relevant:
   Would the annual vaccination against flu be liable for the low number of reports in elders?
   What is the efficacy of the vaccine produced by mettles of [...]

6. August 27, 2009

   Why do we fear Influenza 1 – the antivirals

   First of all, to start this blog, and discuss the H1N1 and the flu in general, I decided to start with texts considering the other side of the Influenza. Let’s see what is going on with the virus and the decisions taken towards the virus.

   With viruses such as Ebola, which killed even 90% of the [...]