And according to what CNN reported on Thursday, researchers believe that vaccines can no longer do much against the new influenza, but they are still able to prevent severe symptoms.
“There appears to be a mismatch[between the vaccine and the virus]as our laboratory studies show,” says researcher Scott Hensley, who led the study.
Hensley, who is also a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, considered the results as bad news for current vaccines.
He explained that influenza vaccines protect us from 4 strains, noting that the study he worked on with others targeted the (H3N2) strain, which is the most prevalent in the world.
The study may contribute to providing a scientific explanation behind the flu outbreak at the University of Michigan in the United States last November, when more than 700 people were infected, about 26 percent of those who had received a flu vaccination.
This indicates that the vaccine was not effective in preventing infection.
Hensley said that he and researchers have been watching the virus for several months, noting that it is constantly mutating, more than any other virus, including the Corona virus, noting that different strains of the virus can spread at the same time.
But he noted that mutations in the H3N2 strain helped the virus evade the antibodies that the body makes in response to vaccines.
Antibodies are the first line of defense in the human body against viruses, and it does not appear, according to the study, that current vaccines are capable of producing the correct vaccines to confront the new strain.
Fortunately, these mutations in the influenza virus did not affect the second line of defense of the human immune system, especially T cells.
Therefore, the study concludes that even if vaccines do not protect against influenza infection, they probably do protect people from severe symptoms and death.
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