what does the flu shot do to your immune system

Q&A With Pharmacy Expert Hai Tran, PharmD

As the showtime cases of flu are reported in Los Angeles this flavour, public health experts are urging anyone who isn't already vaccinated to get the flu shot. It'south the best protection against the flu, which could pummel the U.Due south. this wintertime afterwards near disappearing last year.

"Getting vaccinated against the flu reduces your risk of condign infected too as your gamble of being hospitalized with an infection or dying," said clinical pharmacist Hai Tran, PharmD, associate director of Pharmacy at Cedars-Sinai. "You not only protect yourself but likewise those effectually you, and you are helping build the herd immunity that protects the most vulnerable people in our customs."

With everyone paying more attending to how vaccines work during the ongoing COVID-nineteen pandemic, the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom interviewed Tran to go a closer look at the flu vaccine. It's piece of cake to accept this long-established tool for granted, but a lot of work throughout the twelvemonth goes into developing a new conception of the shot each flavor.

We spoke with Tran for more than details on the flu shot'southward origins, how it works and how it's developed each year.

How does the influenza vaccine work?

Tran: The flu vaccine uses a deactivated or weakened version of the flu virus to train your body to recognize an antigen (poly peptide) on the surface of the virus. This causes your immune system to develop antibodies that will fight the flu.

How is the flu shot fabricated?

Tran: Vaccine developers utilise three different types of processes to make influenza shots.

Currently, most influenza vaccines are made using an egg-based process. Manufacturers use a fertilized chicken egg to grow whichever four strains of the virus the U.S. Nutrient and Drug Administration (FDA) decides volition exist dominant during the upcoming flu flavour. Manufacturers incubate the egg, allowing the virus to replicate, harvest the virus then deactivate or weaken it earlier adding it to a mass-produced injection. A second method uses an animal prison cell instead of egg cells.

The tertiary procedure isolates the genes that have the instructions for making the target poly peptide that your trunk's allowed system must place. Those genes are combined with a unlike virus that infects invertebrates, such as worms (it doesn't hurt humans) and helps pass the genetic instructions to a host jail cell. These proteins are grown in bulk, purified and get so-called recombinant vaccines.

How long does the flu vaccine protect you lot?

Tran: Protection against the influenza wanes over time but lasts for at least half dozen months.

What does it mean when people talk about the flu shot being a skilful match?

Tran: Because the influenza virus is constantly evolving, international public health authorities track the dominant strains year-round. In the U.Southward., the FDA meets in late February or early March to decide which strains the flu shot should protect against during the following flu season. They settle on the meridian iii to four strains that are probable to spread the most easily and cause the worst harm. Some years, the flu vaccine is a practiced match for the viruses actually circulating, causing information technology to work very well. Other years, information technology'due south non as good of a match and less effective.

How is the flu shot different from the COVID-19 vaccine?

Tran: They're similar in that they both have the aforementioned goal of preventing severe illness and death, and they both teach your immune system to recognize and assail a virus. Merely the two vaccines are very different.

The COVID-19 vaccine targets one version of the coronavirus that causes that disease, whereas the flu vaccine e'er targets multiple flu viruses. They are also different types of vaccines produced in different ways. The flu shots are either egg-based vaccines or jail cell-based vaccines, or they're made using recombinant technology. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-xix vaccines apply messenger RNA (mRNA) to teach your cells how to make the protein that your immune organization will target. And the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a harmless virus that teaches your torso'southward cells to brand that target protein.

When were flu vaccines start created and approved for utilise in the U.Southward.?

Tran: The flu virus was first isolated in people in the 1930s. The commencement influenza vaccine was developed in the 1940s to back up the U.South. Army during World State of war II because the influenza was causing then much illness and expiry at that fourth dimension. It wasn't until 1945 that the outset influenza vaccine was licensed for use in civilians.

Have there been any contempo updates to the way influenza vaccines are developed?

Tran: Before the pandemic began, the authorities already was trying to develop a universal flu vaccine that would work on many unlike influenza strains. It's an exciting time in the evolution of vaccines. Because of the pandemic, scientists are finding new ways to develop vaccines more efficiently, which volition help us in the hereafter.

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: What's the Difference Between a Common cold, the Flu and COVID-19?

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Source: https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/how-does-the-flu-vaccine-work/

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