Influenza Vaccines: A Case Study

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Vaccination goes even one step further and can prevent the flu from ever occurring. Development of a vaccine began soon after the first strain of influenza was isolated in 1933. Observations were conducted using formalin inactivated whole virus preparations. They discovered that inoculating an individual with an inactivated form of the virus would introduce the antigens to the body causing it to produce a certain immune response. In 1938, Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis developed the first vaccine for the influenza virus.
Today, a very similar approach is used. To ensure coverage of a broad span of Influenza strains, a vaccine usually consists of an Influenza A strain and an Influenza B strain. Other components of the influenza vaccine include Aluminum gels or salts to promote the immune response to the …show more content…

Their goal was to determine if passenger screening for the flu before boarding the aircraft would decrease the likelihood of a border entry pandemic. The airline staff was directed to explain the study aloud to the passengers. The passengers were given questionnaires to fill out asking to describe how they felt physically and to mention any possible flu-like symptoms they may be experiencing. Half of these questionnaires were randomly marked and once passengers arrived in Christchurch, the people correlating with the marked surveys were asked to have their nose and throat swabbed and also their temperature taken. Those travellers with an unmarked questionnaire, but who reported symptoms were also asked to be tested. Nurses noted whether one or more of the following symptoms were present in each of the individuals: cough, runny nose, sore throat, congestion, fever, chills, and myalgia. After this, they sent the specimens to a lab to be tested and matched the results to the correlating

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