sf vaccine, page-9

Midas,

ultimately all viruses will find a way to be resistant to medication whether anti-viral or vaccine.

A flu vaccine based on last years flu will still have effectiveness for this year's flu if the mutations/recombinations are not great. The annual flu vaccine that we get each year are simply a mix of expected virus types, not to stop us getting the flu but to make the impact much reduced.

The reason for the focus on the anti-virals is that when there is a big genetic shift which current vaccine recipes can't handle. This is where anti-virals are critical in reducing global spread until a new vaccine is created (general distribution 4-6months). But even anti-virals are susceptible to resistance. Tamiflu is now completely useless for a lot of the seasonal flus - the Pope flu last year in Australia was Tamiflu resistant. The only reason why Relenze still works is purely because it has not been used much... so GSK's screw up has turned into a blessing for BTA as rather than competing with Tamiflu it now has a clear run with no resistance/competition.

For diseases like the flu you've gotta think Red Queen effect from Alice in Wonderland -> you have to run to stay in one spot, and run faster to move.